Flying in with a speed just short of bending the gravities of realities. Diving into flesh, my own corporeal form crashes against Hokulani. Pushing her and Kurai out of the way.
Only enough time to stare into haunting spinels, scrying into those eyes. Mali.
Her talons pierce through flesh. Her strength smashes through bones. My heart. At first there is no sensation. Then in all bursts out from within, a fire beyond burning. Finally, a physical pain to wed the emotional agony as my body falls to its knees.
Why?
Out of the corner of my eyes Lani rises.
Everything spins as Kurai cries out to me.
Lani places her gently on the floor. I feel a strange peace, as if a reaper is the one running to my side. Then nausea as I struggle to raise my hand, motioning for her to stop. This is the worst way to find out that Malencia and Evil Incarnate are two separate entities.
It teleports to my daughter’s side. The grin it wears is disgusting enough to ascend my sorrow into wrath.
“Time to go pet.” It tells Kurai as It tries to pick her up off the floor.
“No!” Tearing my dying heart from Malencia’s talon with the flight of darkness.
“Aw’ddy!” She screams with tears as she tries to fight It.
“No Kori, stay.” She chuckles as she snares my soul from within, forcing me into my wounded body. Malencia yanks me back toward her as if I were some fleeing animal. Powerless.
No! I will not be made to watch again! Feeling Malencia’s weight from within, our opposing energies strain as I fight like a man who tries to save his child from a raging house fire. Malencia keeps me down, not letting me go to Kurai. Forcing me to watch the flames engulf.
Hokulani jumps in through the proverbial smog. Her shield blocks Evil’s grasp from Kurai. In the same moment, I break from Malencia’s hold. A taste of freedom from as Hokulani stands stalwart.
“I missed you.” Malencia snickers as I am again bound within my flesh and her curse.
Drawing from a withering well from within. Healing of Night from the base of my spine up towards my wounded heart. Gasping with life.
Hokulani bravely continues clashing against Evil alone.
Kurai stops crying. She whimpers in my dying heart. “Aw’ddy. you’re here! So many hands. So many eyes. Squishy. Gross crunch. More hands. All eyes.” She then shows me everything in my mind’s eye that she has seen and endured this night.
I see Adumbra trying to protect her from - I see- No! My talons curl tightly. My baby… They... Jaws clenching as my teeth grind. Malencia ordered this… Kurai shows me what that demon had her do with the poor human girl. Nightshade… Then the reason for it all as Lani saves her. Baby…
My burning eyes and narrowing brows lock on Malencia’s soul through her eyes. “If you missed me so dearly, Malencia, then you would have still been at the nightclub.”
Summoning up the strength to activate my communication gauntlet. “Code Pluck. Mountain Under Gemini.”
Malencia summons hers up as she keeps me captive in her soul ensnare. “That is a demon disguised as our Shepherd. One that will not be sentient long.”
“I thought King Haelius planted a coup, I thought I had to save you after I saved Kurai. Instead this treachery was at your talons. You had our daughter kidnapped and forced into a ritual involving murder of a human and eating its eyes.”
“Shepherd there is a seal-” An Orcun man’s voice I know but cannot name at the moment, comes on both our lines.
Malencia grabs my forearm, digging into the gauntlet with unnatural strength. Silencing the messenger mid sentence. Shattering the communicator causes all of them to burst and rain down into umbridium shards. Ages of honing the skill to painstakingly talon forge each one. Each of them, a gift. Communication is instantly gone.
Evil teleports besides Malencia. “Hand me the childling later, something else requires my attention.”
“Coward!” Hokulani shouts as she lets out a beam of light where It once stood.
The light of benevolent stars radiates, Malencia drops her hold on me. As she is distracted redirecting the light, I fly with shadow in tears to Kurai.
“Nightshade, Aw’ddy is here.” Regaining form at my little girl’s side. My arms wrapped in darkness, lifting her little body into them. Cradling her as if she were a hatchling. Holding Kurai close to my heart to try and sober up her intoxication directly. The Night, I cannot feel as I hold her. My god’s healing gift is not working on her.
Using my own sorrow to try and heal her, crying deeply. “I am so sorry it took me so long.” Trembling as I kiss, then hold her tiny talon in mine. “I am right here Nightshade.”
Hokulani’s shadow is a shelter as she steps between Malencia and us with her shield. I follow suit and fold my wings around us to keep their clashing energies away from Kurai.
“You are safe, Aw’ddy is here my Princess.” My energetic field is like a pocket dimension for her. Yet even with this, Kurai does not take to my magic.
Swirling my own energy into an orb at my talon tip while singing the lullaby Adumbra taught me. “To dream land. With sleep sand…” Holding the orb before Kurai as I continue to sing. By the graces of the gods, her mouth opens to be fed.
Whispering softly so only Kurai can hear me as she feeds on my energy in her sleep. “Good job my princess.”
Continuing to hum as I lower myself to sit on the floor with legs folded to support Kurai. Feeding her with one talon, while I pluck out eight feathers from my wings. Placing them on her, then transforming this heinous outfit into her taste in sleepwear. Unforgivable.
She is not stabilizing here. There is worry in Hokulani’s heart… I cannot steal it from her.
“The little craven will not die, as long as Evil does not want her to.” Malencia interrupts my thoughts, though she continues fighting the Guardian of Light.
“I did not sell my soul to you, just for you to sell our childling to Evil Incarnate!” The shout escapes me as I part my wings to stab Malencia with my eyes.
“Sell? Oh sweet Moonflower, selling means I would have been paid. I gave her to Evil.”
Gave? “Excuse me?”
“Children are not objects to be given.” Hokulani snarls as she bashes Malencia’s forearm.
Malencia takes a step backward, looking toward Hokulani. “You can lower your shield, I am trying to be civil and talk to my husband.”
We both caw and growl, accidentally unified. “Nothing about this is civil.”
Malencia disengages, flying herself backwards. She shifts her eyes toward me with a cruel smirk. “Interesting.”
My talons create more snack orbs for Kurai as quickly as I can, then stuff them into her pockets.
Kurai starts to slowly open those valiant ruby eyes. “Aw’ddy?”
I softly nuzzle her head and give her another orb. “I love you Kurai.” Giving her a final kiss on the cheek. “You and Phantisma. Forever. Unconditionally.”
Malencia slowly starts to walk toward us. Almost ghostly as she haunts her way through a sea of corpses and soul orbs. A melting pot of lives snuffed by the one they worshipped.
They are lucky to have escaped a loving father’s wrath. They begged Malencia for life, I would have made them beg me for death.
Methodically she steps over them as if props on a stage.
Rising as I create an egg shaped shield bubble around Kurai. Whispering close as I make our way to Hokulani. “I am sorry Kurai, I need you to be a brave warrior princess again.”
“No.” She tries to hold on me through the shield, but cannot. “Don’t leave.” She cries as she falls swiftly back to sleep.
“Aw’ddy is always with you… My love will always be with you.” Hugging her one last time, though keeping her encased in my energy shield.
Now only a step behind my friend, still using my wings as cover for Kurai as I nudge my little one into the Light Guardian’s free arm. “Lani, take her and run.”
“You two run-” With a gentle tone, contradicting her fierce eyes fixed on her target. She tries gently pushing against, using no light.
“She is fading, it is too dangerous for her if I take her. She needs an angel and a miracle. You are both.” Placing Kurai into her arms. “And I am so grateful for you.”
“Then be grateful your daughter is alive and fly. I cannot take her home.”
“Home is not safe.” Tears escape as I place my talon on her shoulder. “Please Lani, save my little girl.”
“If either one of you leaves with her, Evil has a surprise waiting. Moonweed, you and the byproduct are far more safe with me.” Malencia chuckles with her talon over her mouth.
“Never call her that again.” The feathers on my wings stand on themselves.
Kori, whatever she has planned is worse than flying away. Lani plants her thoughts into my heart.
I know. That is why I have to stay, and Kurai has to leave. Shifting my eyes briefly to her.
Hokilani withdraws and holds Kurai close to her heart with no light, both arms around her. I bow my head, then turn to face Malencia, who is once again giggling to herself. Lani’s and Kurai’s energy escapes this cursed place as they run through the doors.
“Well now that was fun. Are you ready to go home now?”
My talons tremble as my feathers puff out aggressively. Raising my arms and widening my stance.
“Oh my, I did not know you still had dancing in you left.”
“Only a war dance.”
“And if I don’t stop?” She purposely steps over another fallen one as she waltzes closer.
That subtle sway of her hips within her graceful swagger is clearly a poisoned dagger. “I thought the multiverses needed their Dark Shepherd, so I had a little fun. I did not cheat on you tonight, however, in my eyes you just did.”
“What are you talking about?” Keeping myself guarded.
“You begged another woman for a favor regarding our childling, and you are not the type to weaponize another person for your goals.”
“I would never violate my vows, I am not you.”
She starts encircling me. Maintaining combative form as I step as her mirror.
The wickedness in her smile is endless. She draws her talons as a tentacle bursts out from a wing feather. “You already have. Playing family with another woman. Showing your face in my temple without reverence for your goddess.”
“I should have divorced you when I caught you not only taking prisoners of war, but your cruelties inflicted upon them.” Our circles tighten closer. “And the only ones I have played family with as you say- Are Adumbra and Devadas, they are a brother and sister to me.”
With a swift movement of her talons, chains of malice engulf me from within. She grabs my chin with that terrible limb.
“That mouth of yours Kori.” She seizes my face and kisses me deeply.
My teeth like a row of spearmen holding the line against the cavalry of her lips, spitting betrayal that tastes like rust back at her.
She pulls away with our saliva and her own blood ether dribbling from her with bedroom laughter. Then her back-talon swipes my face.
Endless multiverses of love wither into the full bloom of hatred. No. A memory. Our first kiss. Shoving off the memory by looking into those heartless crimson spinel eyes of hers. “Malencia, we are done.”
She wipes the gunk off her mouth and smears it on my cheek, where her talon draws my blood ether. “If you have so much bite left in you, we are far from done.”
Tightened fists beat into sides of my thighs as my wings arch, turning my head from her. “Stop.”
“It’s alright.” Another tendril starts to massage between my wings.
Opening my eyes, turning them fiercely toward her. “Get your abyssal limbs off of me.”
She retracts them from my skin, but their presence still looms around me. Opening her arms to me with a smile, hearing past the allure as she speaks. “Let me hold you Koriath. You’re hurt, angry, and confused.”
“My mind has never been more clear. No words can paint a portrait of your betrayal.”
“Betrayal? Koriath-”
“By the power entrusted and hatched-righted to me, as Guardian Emperor of Darkness, I Karasu Koriath, relieve you of your position as High General. No longer Malencia the War Raven, that is a hero’s title. You have stripped your own honor with your actions against your family, your nation, and the crown. A crown we no longer share, as I too declare an emergency marriage annulment.”
“Oh please, you are being over dramatic again. Besides, on what grounds?” She raises her talons, one pointing to the dead with a smirk and a flip of her hair. “Most importantly, with what witnesses?”
My darkness begins to paint the space, it softly flows from me like black smoke. Tears surging down my face with the fury of a waterfall. My words are like the wind in a storm spell.
My darkness begins to paint the space, it softly flows from me like black smoke. Tears surging down my face with the fury of a waterfall. My words are like the wind in a storm spell.
“I call upon all those who have died at your talons, this planet, and upon my ancestors. Upon the element of Darkness itself. I humbly call upon my patron and favorite deity, Lord Rajnish, the god of all Night. I call upon the witness of Lord Amorani, the god and personification of Love. By all other gods and those who choose to bear witness.”
“Koriath-” One of her tendrils lunges, then tightens around my face.
With a masterful strike and a spin, I sever it clean off. “Silence and keep your appendages to yourself as I speak.”
She lunges at me, with a flip I dodge, recovering gracefully, though her chains on my soul keep me leashed to her proximity. She makes her attack toward me again.
I fly in a darkened mist behind her. “You are no longer Empress of Darkness. The marriage of Emperor Karasu Koriath and Malencia the Raven Fiend was throned upon lies and deception, then further broken by abuse and soul crimes, thus invalid. Our marriage is now annulled, rendered void, just as that thing you dare to call a heart. Malencia, you and I are unwedded from each other indefinitely.”
This cursed plant trembles from its core, held still by the darkness of space. The circlet helm that the Black Lotus bloomed for her when we married disappears into dust, which an unseen wind blows the remnants off her head.
“Freedom.” The voice I heard when the twins hatched… The last time I heard that voice… Is my soul- no. I still bear her curse.
“Karasu Koriath.” She scowls, her tendrils in the air as if war dancing. “You have made a grave mistake.”
“The mistake of marrying you sent three of our childlings into the grave. Kurai and Phantisma almost met the fate of their siblings. For their sake, you have no parental rights or custody over the twins. In fact, you should be executed for your crimes, however…”
She continues walking up to me, sinister shaping, bloodlust her perfume.
Taking my own heavy hearted steps toward her. “Malencia The Raven Fiend, you are under arrest. A count of murder for everyone killed at your talons. Including.” Tears streaming down, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Including for the murders of Prince Karasu Kormizyo, Princem Karasu Nephti, and Prince Karasu Desiderius.”
“You have no proof that I killed Nephti! I am the one who named her-”
“If you are about to dead-name my fallen childling, then stay silent.”
“And to bring up Kormizyo! That was what eighteen ages ago? Worse, you know it was ruled an accident! That case is closed.”
“You ran our first hatched’s ether over yourself. I rushed home feeling his life fading. Just to find his gashed body fading in your talons. I-I saw his ether that you bathed in, turn back the age on your skin. From that night on, you looked no older than I.”
“Koriath it was an accident! Meant to be Aw’mmy and baby having a bath together. It was your magnanimous darkness that brought clarity and reality to what happened. You saved me from that laughing fit and brought me to scream. We both reported it together. You held me and said you forgave me! Liar! His death was ruled an accident due to battle fatigue.”
“And yet you refused to take leave. You knew exactly what you were doing and what to say. We both know that you do not experience battle fatigue, no, you get battle passion.”
“The only one of our childlings’ deaths I will admit to is Desiderius’s.”
“You have no choice but to admit, the entire empire knows what you did that night.”
“If you were stronger, maybe you could have saved him.” Wickedness in her smile.
“I would have traded my soul to keep Desi alive!”
“But you didn’t. You did it for those two byproducts that you call daughters.”
“Never call them that!” Feathers on my wings puffing, readying my talons. “I was still grieving Desiderius…” Now shaking. “I tried running away from you so I could make the painful decision that you left me with, reverently. But you hunted me down like escaped prize livestock.”
“And where did I find my little rooster? Hiding with a little curly blonde guard dog.” She bears her talons, her tendrils puff out as well.
“I ran to Hokulani not for the Guardian of Light, but for my one friendship where politics and religion have no influence.”
She steps up to me with a vile grin, her tendrils haunt just over my skin. “Your little guard dog is not here to fight for you. You should be more afraid now that I am no longer your wife. You are vulnerable and alone again, Koriath.”
Looking back to Malencia with inner strength, ignoring her attempts at sewing fear. “I am also arresting you for all of your soul and domestic crimes. All the times you coerced and manipulated me. Every time you laid a talon on our childlings, including tonight”
Malencia’s tendrils dance proudly in the air, laughing with tears, holding her sides as she continues with her verbal mind flaying. “Oh you’ve gone from drama to comedy. ~”
Cannot ~ that is the most ridiculous lie that has ever come out of her mouth.
“And Kurai will be better off as one of Evil’s pets. You should be proud, joyous even-”
“My daughter is no one’s pet!” Leaping into the air with talons drawn back.
“You gloriously insolent cock, of course she is.” She sends out her tentacles swarming toward the air.
Flying in place, fighting to keep her relentless attacks from me.
“Because you are my pet. You are anything I want you to be. I own your soul.” The way she teases as she speaks, almost as if hell worlds burn with her passions and rage. She is the dark flame that sets them all. All crushing cosmic bleakness comes beneath her ruthlessness.
Pushing to get closer enough to punch that disgusting smile off her face. Diving down as space gently bends around me. Contact.
Tackling her down. In her eyes I still see the soul that mine shared love with, yet my left talon raises to backhand her. My right presses her neck and both wrists to the floor. “Tell me how to free Kurai.”
“She belongs to Evil now.”
Pressing down my right talon harder, raising my shaking left higher.
“Make a deal with Evil.”
“A deal with the physical personification of Evil across dimensions, cultures, and multiverses?”
“Don’t forget across heavens and hells, across godscapes.”
“What kind of monkey paw deal is going to set her free?”
“Up to Evil.”
How I long to lose myself to beating her with a heart broken fury. Yet all I see… all I see is the mother of my childlings… and in her eyes… the hen I… Lord Amorani, why do I still love her? I hate her! No. It is all the years of torment in the guise of devotion. Thank you for the clarity Lord of Love.
My thoughts are not my actions. Carefully loosening the pressure of my talons. Removing the rest of my body off of her. At her side, taking a knee.
“No Dimperial prison will hold you, Malencia, so I will turn you over to Haelius personally. If you can give my daughter to Evil as a token of your fancy; then I can trade your freedom to save my people and end the war of my ancestors. Now come along quietly.”
She gazes up with her bedroom eyes and laughter. “You know neither one of us can quietly.”
“Silence. Follow me and do not resist.”
“Oh so demanding. I like your new playstyle.” She arches her back using her legs and hips, unleashing her cosmic tentacles. One coils around my ankle before I can move. Her stare increases in severity. “But you have to make me comply.”
My heart pounds, her touch is corrosive. Kicking my leg into the air as she drags it back down. “Let go of me. I am not playing with you.”
“Yes you are.” With her violent laughter, a demonic legion of her tendrils seize my limbs, wings, neck, even my fingers. “That is what you truly want, to switch sides. I see it in those deliciously teary garnet eyes.” Another one of her tendrils grabs my face.
Pressing firmly against her wrists and neck. She tries to turn our bodies over. The harder I push against her, the more of my flesh her tentacles seize.
“I understand if I am not powerful enough to please you. If you needed a godlike being, you should have communicated it with me. Yet in secrecy, you chose to entwine yourself to Evil Incarnate. The enemy of my ancestors, gods, the enemy of my very heart, mind, and soul. Worst of all, you threw Kurai into this. Unlike your other crimes, from that I cannot turn an eye.”
One of her grotesque, rotten, slimy appendages slinks across my chest as she flashes me that look in her eyes. “Then keep your eyes on me Koriath.”
Heart dropping to my stomach, feathers standing up upon themselves. Leaping to my feet, releasing her. “If that is how you want me to defeat you, then just leave. I will find Kurai’s freedom and lead my people into peace without you. You are free from obligation to me or my world. I never want to see your face again. Go play with someone else. We are done. I am leaving. Good bye.”
She does not release me. She stands, her other worldly pale form radiates a corruption from her glowing crimson leer. Her tendrils manage to darken to a color no language can describe, no heart can feel.
“Of course I am free. Free to do with you as I please.” With a wave of her talon, she tugs at my soul’s cursed bindings. “And right now Koriath, I want you broken and on your knees.”
Trying fiercely to fly away, renders me unable to fly. Testing the water, taking a step down the air toward her. No… I can move toward her but I cannot run… Placing my body into a silent stance. “My submission was a gift of my love. Love you betrayed. You no longer deserve that honor, demon.”
“This is my one warning. Kneel before me willingly. Beg for me, like you did for that bitch to save our daughter. Do this, and I will not make you regret breaking up with me.”
“Please Mali, please just let me go. Let’s just-” Another tentacle silences my mouth. Every millimeter on my skin her abyssal limbs mouthlessly bite. Each a painful incision as her toxin pours into my being as only once before.
“You have volunteered to lose all protections, dignity, and honor that you had as my husband. You chose this.” Her cruelty crushes what is left of my heart.
Tears with the raging sorrow of a hurricane from my eyes as I appeal to her within the spirit, heart, and mind. “Malencia, please. If you want to fight we can fight, just do not resort to this. Please.”
She releases me with laughter. I still feel her venom within me, but I can move, albeit barely. One of her larger tendrils envelops me, then throws my body against the wall. The sharp cold stone breaks against my wings as I cry out from the impact.
“You are right. You are far more fun when you fight back, but I will still do with you as I wish.” She lifts me to my feet as she snickers.
“I am sorry for whatever I have done to put you through this rage” Conjuring darkness between my talons. “However, you have yet to taste this rage of mine!” Blasting out a beam of crushing darkness.
She hits it with an open talon, bouncing it back to me. Serving back the strike, we continue to attack each other with our words as we hit the mass back to each other.
“Oooh some rage. I am so scared.” She slaps the mass back to me with a crimson jolt.
Flipping backwards to doge, she now sends more furious smaller versions of my attack. These are far too fast for me to do anything other than continue a dance of dodging in silence.
She changes the tempo of her attacks. “Oooh look, now I can make you dance.”
“Malencia, I loved you!” Screaming from my heart, hitting one of them back to her with a rhythmic spin.
As my feet plant firmly on the ground, from my own shadows and my soul again her hold engulfs me. “I told you that the way I love hurts.” She snickers with a smirk. “And oh how I love you Koriath.”
The anguish of my heart pushes her attack off of me. Darkness enveloping my body, not as a starless night, but in gravitons, in forces unseen and unseeable. A deep prismatic spectrum of black blossoms from within me. Feathery smoke rolls off my form as if my body is a censer. My flesh returns from the transformation free of her hold and clad in holy cloth. Sheer in sincerity of sorrow and ready to begin dances of anguish.
I am still the guardian of darkness. No running. Not a victim. Taking a step toward her.
With this, the staff of Ooraca suddenly appears in my talons. This relic of a guardian past, Karasu Ooraca, my great-Aw’li. I still have at least blessing and honor with one ancestor. Thank you.
Tears cascading, the only emotional release as the instinct of a warrior trained in mind, body, and heart since age six takes over. Breaking myself from thought, fighting with heart.
She sends a mass of tendrils toward me. Aiming the staff at it, channeling my power through it. My energy and her tentacles clash in the space between us. Like a tug of war. Gritting my teeth as she snickers. Arms growing heavy with the intensity as this continues.
Finally, my energy dismantles one tendril. Then one by one, the malicious energy returns to her, as mine returns. A heavy breath of release, keeping the staff and stance poised.
She sends out her crimson bolt.
With the staff, instantly shielding my body. Concentration on self defence as her energy surges. Her bolt takes a new form. Releasing the shield and parrying her attack. Feeling out how to dismantle her-this, no- this energy. It is not darkness. It is not a natural void. I can feel her paralysis start to inflict upon my mind from within.
Bother her crimson void and her tentacles now flank. My body flips forward through the air. A defiant strike against each one. Dissipating both again.
She drags me down to her with the weight on my soul.
Diving toward her pull, striking the talon she puppets my body with. She drops her control, immediately I fly to escape.
Halfway into a shadowy mist, her speed desperate and maddened. She pulls me out of spirit and into flesh. Out of the air and crashing onto the floor. She does not move, but memories of the heart begin to haunt me.
“There is nothing left for you to coerce out of me.” Repelling her psychic attack.
She starts to step toward me, encircling. A violent dance about to erupt. Bending the darkness that I have painted this place, with the void of space.
Beginning to dance with the staff, pointing it at two of the six directions. Her gravity bends my knee wrong. Recovering from falling with the staff as a crutch.
Her haunting chuckling engulfs my mind. Every moment my heart held her with love. Everytime her terrible strength shined through her smile. Her self confidence and playfulness that I fell in love with.
“Traitor!” Lunging into a spin with a fake out kick.
She only laughs as she evades. Countering with a touch.
Swatting her talon away. She grabs me by the guardian’s necklace. Pulling me in furiously. Pushing her away as her lips attack mine.
Retaliation as she rips my soul form out with her talon. The staff of Ooraca slips from me. Menagerie of golds, reds, and oranges fading into my darkened core as she pulls me toward her.
Enough form left to slap her across the face. As she stumbles not to fall through this plane, I try to escape again. Unable. Diving into a row of corpses. Reforming my body as one of them. Summoning back the saint’s relic into my deathlike pose.
“I am no vampire.” She heals her cheek. “I can steal from both the cradle and the grave.” With this she teleports on a maddened mist over me.
Rolling forward, using the staff to pin her down again. She chortles, turning me over, striking me across the face with her talon. Driving her knee between my legs, I see myself outside of my body from the pain. The staff falls again as her energy engulfs me.
Back inside myself, holding her tight. Tumbling us forward again. My right talon brushes against the staff. She wraps her legs around mine. Wrestling. My prize is freedom, hers is control.
Her tendrils seize my flesh. Hearing a rip of fabric as her talons dig into my thighs.
My only attack without breaking this star system… Looking at her neck, the only part I can reach, then in her eyes. “Malencia, let me go or fight me like a normal person.”
“You are neither normal nor a person, Koriath.” Her smile is unlike anything I have ever seen. Her laughter, a vile hymn of reveling in destruction.
Unleashing the depths of my darkest being will free me from her… but there is life on the Earth of this dimension… Life is so rare, and in all its forms.
“You were bred to be a living weapon of the gods. I am the god that owns you.” She crows.
“I will not be objectified.” Biting her neck with tears and shame. Choosing my own destruction, rather than sacrificing this solar system.
A signature sound escapes her lips. “Your pretty mouth says one thing, but your actions say another.” She pulls my soul out while simultaneously snuffing my own darkness that I coated this cursed place with.
“I am not a weapon, or your plaything. I am a person. A person who loved you. Who shielded you from accusations, who devoted to you.” Forcing myself back into my body.
Fighting fear, struggling to kick her off of me. “That devotion is over. I denounce you from my pantheon!”
Crying, clawing, biting, kicking, punching, anything to get her off of me. She continues to laugh as we exchange blows back and forth.
“That is fine. I do not need worship from my playthings.” She forces my soul form out once more. Her energetic chains, tightening.
“Malencia-Mali, please. Let me go.” Heavy exhaustion as the staff dissipates and my sacred guardian garb dissipates into dark ether. Replaced by the regal silken garments and jewelry I wore to our date earlier this night, now tattered.
She responds only with cruel laughter as she continues pulling me into her as I struggle to break free of her infection of my soul. Crimson washing all golden colors to black.
I know her answer, I know her heart, but still it must be asked. “Is there any mercy, as the father of your childlings that you could spare my soul with, as I have spared your freedom?”
“Mercy? Spare?”
Her cruelty engulfs me. Her laughter rings out with paralyzing vile. Allowed to feel every word, a strike upon my heart and soul. Made to suffer her excruciating wickedness.
“I will harvest my little moonflower whenever I wish. And when you finally wither, I will display your dried, decayed blooms proudly.”
Fighting against her with the darkness of my soul. This planet starts trembling beneath me again.
“It will be easier on you if you give up and accept your fate.”
“Never.” For a moment, freedom. Gasping to escape through unseen dark energy.
Her energy flanks mine. Surrounding me.
Crying out with all that I am. “Guardians! Atesh! Help!”
Fighting every moment of her painful pull. Her paralysis sets in deeper, like nothing I have ever experienced… not even when… unspeakable pain… indescribable sorrow of past and present, all starting to blend as one.
Resisting. Adumbra would not have let Kurai be taken without falling first. Her sacrifice will be honored. My princesses need me. The darkness of my heart causes this planet to quiver again, forcing Malencia off me. Surfacing for the breath of freedom before her tide drags me down again.
The entirety of malevolence blooms out of her flesh. Fully cosmic and otherly. Vileness beyond poetry. Unquenchable lust for suffering. Ecstasy of malice. Once again, her soul sieges upon my soul. All while her laughter echoes through me, engulfing me. My desolation impending. Careless of my cries as I ceaselessly fight to defend.
“Face the path you have chosen like a man, Koriath.”
My shame and sorrow uncontrollably escapes into space, shutting down black holes, spreading universes. Bleeding darkness as I fall beyond her event horizon.
Her abyss besets me.