[Memory] hope for the hopeless

[Talon]

??? Age of Wonders

Dreams were a funny thing. Talon knew that he was dreaming and yet this felt like more than that. It felt like something stronger, something deeper. It felt like he was reaching part of himself that he had simply forgotten and now it was resurfacing. So he simply floated through the dream. Watching. Living. Experiencing it for what it was.

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The light of the setting sun found him. It always found him. She had promised it to him. He felt the warmth of the sun’s rays upon his back as he stood there, thinking on everything that had happened to him in recent days. How many faces had he seen lost to the darkness? It was stretching further and further across the lands. He did not know if he had the strength to push it back. He was so close to finding the answer. He was so close to finding the path forward. Since he was a boy, he had been fighting to reclaim the broken family that had been stolen from him by the sinister darkness that was obsessed with them. It had killed his mother. It had swallowed his father. It had stolen his brother. Only he was left to stand against it. He had been to the Oracle of Vicis. He had touched his hands upon the Tapestry of Fate and seen the weave of history that was to play out.

Over and over again the scene played out in his head. Over and over again, he saw himself perform an atrocious act that made his gut twist into knots and his heart clench in his chest. The way to defeat the insidious evil digging its claws into the world had been made clear to him. The Goddess of Fate had said that it was the only way to stave off an era of terrible suffering. He stared down at the blade of Novuril as it reflected the light of the sun. His hand clenched tighter around the hilt. So many lives were resting upon his shoulders he thought the weight of it all might crush him.

“How can this be Justice?” He spoke aloud to no one but himself. Squeezing his eyes shut he thought through the vision of the future that had been shown to him. It was the decided path. It was the future that could be if he did what he had been shown. It was the path that meant the Light, his Light, would prevail. It was the path where he exacted terrible Justice upon those who had committed the dark atrocities in the war that continued to ravage the lands. It was the moment that was supposed to give Hope to a broken and confused world.

“You ask too much of me.” He squeezed his eyes tighter. The burn of frustrated tears stung behind his closed eyes. “Too much.”

His shoulders shook. He struggled to contain the anger, the frustration, the grief, and the pain that had been building up inside of him ever since he had been shown the way forward. With every passing day, the twisted dark was growing stronger. Its shadows were being cast across the world and as those shadows grew, the power of both the Dragon Gods and the Mistlords waned. Their ability to interact with the world as mortals were consumed by their Fears, thirst for Vengeance and the Shadow that he fought against, interfered with their ties to Ransera. Only he stood in the way. Only he, as the avatar of Light, Justice and Hope, was still holding sway over the mortal souls tied to the material plane. For such was the nature of demigods, to live and breathe as a mortal while serving as a bridge to the divine.

Arcas opened his eyes, looking up into the skies. He let out a cry of pain and sorrow, driving his blade into the earth. He fell to his knees and hung his head.

“I cannot…” He shook his head. “I cannot do it. This cannot be Justice.”

The skies darkened and in the distance, he heard a soft music. At first he thought it was Syren, her whimsical music coming through the winds to comfort him. When he looked up into the skies however, he saw clouds dancing only when he focused, they were not clouds. He did not know what compelled him to, but as he stared at the swirling mist of formlessness that was growing closer and closer, Arcas sang. The words were in Draconic, the language older than Ransera. It was the tongue of dragons and of the gods. As the music grew steadier and he found its harmony, Arcas let it fill him. He sang of the pain he felt. He sang of the injustice he was faced with. He sang of the grief he felt in knowing the road that lay ahead of him. He sang until his voice harmonized with the voice singing the melody that thrummed through him. It was all he knew how to do in that moment.

It was all he could do. The rest of what lay ahead of him felt impossible, for in his heart, he did not want to do it.

[Lyra]

They listened to the songs as they drifted, aimless and without will across the skies, carried from one wind to the next in an endless loop across the vast continent. They gave little thought to where they traveled, for no matter where they were their souls were connected. Through the eyes of thousands, the world was reflected back to them. They saw as a woman grieved the loss of a son, they watched the soldier question his leader's sanity, they listened to the kings as they prayed to gods that ignored their pleas for aid. Wherever they went they could hear it all, for those they touched carried with them a piece, a sliver of the whole. It felt right.

Souls sang in beautiful, chaotic disharmony. Their melodies grated on one another, wavering between sweet melodic tones to stochastic rumbling beats that lit fury and rage in the hearts of those around. They tasted the darkest feelings that tied those souls to the music, and with joy, they played matching chords of desire which wove into the patterns of all that carried their whispers. Their body flowed in endless patterns, spinning and undulating as they danced across the sky. From time to time they would drop lower, seep into the villages and towns to spread their whispers further, but they enjoyed the freedom that floating among the clouds gave them.

They were certain they had drifted quite far from the hated city, but not so far that he could not find them. Idly they wondered of that man, of that creature that hid behind the little one. It was different, it had talked to them as if they could think. They hummed a tune as old as they were as they drifted toward a treeline. An old song, a new song made of old notes, but it was unfamiliar now. It gave them pause as they wondered... and then they realized. It was not just their whispers that sang...

A new voice, a young voice. A powerful voice. It sang a resonating note that steadily shifted to harmony with theirs, and when the notes finally clicked in place they felt a shiver through their being. Slowly their eyes turned on the lone man upon the hill, the entirety of their focus shifting to one point for the first time in many years. Their song continued, and with the rise and fall of the melody, they drew closer to the forest, to the ground, to the one who called to them. As they listened to him they heard in his voice a pain that few could understand. They tasted anger and fury, frustration, and under it all a deep, suffocating sadness. It made them smile, and they flowed down to become a billowing fog that crept slowly between the trees.

As they drew closer the whispers grew louder. Voices of thousands spoke all at once, too soft to be truly understood. The voice of children, of men, and of women. Of giants, of dwarves and elves, and perhaps of gods. Their darkness steadily collected together from between the trees, dark tendrils flowing between trunks and limbs to become a thin mist that spun in confusing patterns, creating a dark veil through which the sky above was barely visible. The shadows shifted and danced in this space, pulling toward the darkness as golden orbs blinked to life and stared at the man at their center.

It had been so long that they had forgotten how to speak... So instead they reached out a thread of themselves that formed an odd mockery of a hand. They reached out, touching the edge of that nimbus that they could see. They sent the impression through their melodies, through the song that still continued.

Why do you suffer?

The whispers echoed the question, dozens upon dozens of voices softly asking why...

[Talon]

Arcas finished singing. He had no more song within him to sing at that moment. But he felt when the many voices reached out to him and spoke as one. Looking up at the whispering mass, he turned silver eyes upon her. In that glance, Arcas beheld the lives of not just this formless cloud of mist and shadow but the lives of all it had touched. He heard all of them. He knew all of them. He beheld each and every one of them as he witnessed the throes of justice and injustice, and all things that sought to hide itself from the light that was his by divine right. Into that formless darkness, Arcas shed his light to reveal the truth of what was before him. Arcas Light flowed out from him like the rays of the morning dawn and shed its radiance upon every dark secret that rest at the heart of this creature’s soul.

The light pushed away all else until standing before Arcas was not a cloud of formless power, but an elven woman with golden eyes. A Hytori of ancient majesty, gilded by the raw beauty of a much younger world. He saw before him a woman that had suffered much. He saw the core of her soul that was so filled with a bitter rage and wounded anger, that before anyone else they would have withered. Every deed she had ever whispered, every act she had ever performed, every hope she had ever felt, they were his to know and understand. As Arcas rose to his feet, he kept his light focused on the core of what really mattered, the heart within the chorus of eldritch power.

“Fate would seek to force my hand.” Arcas planted his sword into the ground. The blade cut through the dirt as though it were clay. It stood there, unmoving, the blade finer than the greatest of steel ever worked by mortal hands. Ancient runes, not in Vallenor, but in Draconic, graced the blade with divine power.

“I am asked to give up Hope, for a soul that needs it more than any other.” Arcas shook his head. He looked to the heavens as though the answers to his dilemma would somehow be found among the skies. He then brought his gaze back down to the elf in front of him.

“Many are the stories I have heard about you, Lady of Whispers.” He looked around at the wispy mists that hovered all around them. “But never have I heard the story that truly matters to you.”

Before him Arcas saw the grave injustice that burned at the heart of this creature’s soul. If he could understand nothing else, perhaps in learning of her, this ancient entity that was the whisper on the edge of a thousand nightmares, perhaps he could find a way. Reaching up, Arcas touched the hand that was extended to his nimbus. His touch was solid. It was warm and callused from years of labor and the life of a warrior.

“Will you share your story with me, Lana?” The girl from ancient Silfanore stared back at him for the briefest of moments before returning to the woman before him. “That I might share mine. Perhaps together, we may yet find a way to end each other’s suffering.”

[Lyra]

They were touched, a foreign, unnerving thing that made them draw back their essence to ring a wider circle around the man. It should not have been, could not have been, yet he had done it. They shivered inside as they were seen, felt the light of divine goodness brush their soul with searing heat, and instinctively recoiled. They had known that he was touched by this power, but not that it was his, a part of him. He was light, he was warmth. He was everything that the greater lord was not.

The black smoke spun faster even as it thinned out slightly as the shadows recessed. His words were confusing to them, odd, incomprehensible... but it wasn't. They did not wish to listen, did not wish to remember. They knew already what it was they hated, and they disliked remembering it all. Remembering was painful, remembering was agony. Yet even as the denial of it all swelled, a small voice inside whispered consolingly to them. Their whispers whispered back to their own mind, and the whispers in the forest grew louder as they argued back and forth. Should they remember? Should they forget? Run away?

Thousands of voices abruptly silenced as the smoke stilled, and from the darkness Lyrielle whispered softly in their own melodic voice...

"That is not our name..."

Like a spark on dry wood those words brought focus to the world, and their golden eyes blinked once, then twice in surprise. They had not spoken in so long they had forgotten how. They were always the echo's in the backs of the mind, the tug at the heart to tempt the soul. No one for centuries had tried to speak with them, and once they started they found words came clearer to their mind.

From the center of the darkness the smoke condensed, creating the outline of a woman with the eyes still staring curiously at the man.

"We are from the time before time was absolute. We walked the halls of Ich'nir, when the realm of gods sat at the shores of mortals." They floated their steadily solidifying form forward toward Arcas once more, but stayed at the edge of the radius of light that he still gave off. They continued to speak from lips that were steadily forming as the black at the top of their head steadily filled to silver strands that flowed as if caught in wind, "We were born to be souless, a husk to be filled and a doll to be broken. The hated ones with sun in their veins spoke of greatness and purity while spitting bile into the eyes of the sacrifices they tread upon. We broke their ritual, and lost our names."

Her form solidified further as darkness wrapped her naked flesh like a dress. She lay sideways in the air, hair flowing out long enough to circle them both as she pressed thin fingers against the invisible nimbus of power that separated them, not by intent but by design. Lyrielle gazed at the man, emotions passing across her unschooled features as she considered him.

"What do you desire little god?" Lyrielle said softly, a smile spreading across her lips as she rolled over and hovered half upside-down over him, "We... Have not spoken with another but him in so long. We will listen."