who are you, really?

[Florian]

Even he did not understand why he drank the fluid, knowing full well in the moments he saw it that it would surely have disastrous effects. It was an urging, a decision not made by his consciousness. A desire that was so fleeting he had been unable to control it before it was enacted. Florian had little time to consider what he had done, but in the time he had, he did not feel regret. He was aware, but there was no thoughts he could think, as overloaded with information, as intense everything felt. Somehow, he did not collapse on the ground, but he stood, screaming and laughing and crying and breaking apart at once.

—

Florian had never gone swimming. He had submerged himself in the bathtub. He had never jumped into a lake, or a river, or a pond, or a pool. But, if he had, he imagined this is what it would have felt like. Except, in some ways, it felt like he was the ocean, the sea, the pond and the pool, filling every crevice until he was not. It reminded him, particularly, of the sinking, drowning feeling he had felt when he had been operated on. This time, however, he was not scared.

In a sea of darkness, Florian was drawn to the point of light. He knew he was formless, but he did not care for such a thing, and he dragged his thoughts towards the light, no matter where the current led. He was not going to be controlled by the waves while he was still conscious, and even has he filled the spaces of everywhere and then filled the spaces of nowhere at once, he was rather determined to bring himself closer. He had survived so much before, and he would survive so much still. The very idea that he might let himself be killed was audacious. It did not fit into his worldview, to allow himself death.

So closer, and closer to the light he pushed himself on. The drifting sea could not control him. Only he could control him.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

The darkness swirled all around Florian until he marshaled himself. Taking hold of the current of his thoughts he plucked his own consciousness from the endless stream of everything and nothing. Yet the current continued to want to pull him under. It lulled his mind with promises of eternity that was both bliss and oblivion. It promised rest. It promised torment. It promised euphoria. It promised ignorance. It was all of these things.

But Florian’s rebellion against such notions ushered him along until the light grew brighter and brighter and then…

…it was quiet.

It was not an unsettling quiet but a quiet of immense comfort and serenity. It was as if every sound that had ever been uttered was all at once in perfect harmony. That was when Florian would notice an infinite number of brilliant points of light. Endless shimmering jewels that glistened against a canvas of soft, warm colors. Far ahead…or perhaps just within reach, spun a planet in the endless sea of stars. Surrounded by three moons and encompassed by a ring of cosmic dust. The sun burned brightly, an orb of warm illumination in the vast openness of the velvet dark of space. Clouds of cosmic aether drifted lazily, forming columns, spirals and collections of shapes he could not name. Creatures seemed to drift like great whales in the clouds.

And then it moved.

A dragon shifted in the cosmic dust, crowned by horns that were bejeweled with the stars themselves. Fire as bright as the sun and as soft as twilight wrapped around those great horns that wove down to a draconic face. Two eyes of molten starlight regarded Florian with exquisite gentleness. A woman’s voice, as vast as the ocean of stars before him and incomprehensibly ancient, wrapped itself around Florian’s mind.

“Oh, Little One…” The sensation of being wrapped in warmth, of being embraced by the very concept of love itself, suffused Florian’s being. It was tender and while overwhelming at first, it abated.

“What mischief have you spun now?” The lilt of a soft chuckle echoed in the infinite expanse. “Come. Gather yourself. I know you can.”

And in his mind, Florian was shown The Way.

It had no words. It had no description. Merely feelings. At this colossal leviathan’s soft nudge, Florian could see infinite paths before him but they did not pull or drown him. He was grasped in the tenderest of embraces and simply shown.

Which Way would he choose?

[Florian]

There were far too many stars in the sky to count. Florian did not even try. His thoughts that could wander drifted towards the idea that perhaps this was the freedom promised. It was a calm, beautiful place of serenity. It was nothing like him, nothing like the destruction that he wrought. He felt out of place, but he was still welcomed. It was uncomfortable, for a moment, and the space turned and contorted until there was a dragon before him, nearly as vast as the cosmos they were both in. He couldn't see where she ended and space began, but it did not seem to concern him.

She sounded like the stars, though Florian did not know what stars sounded like before that very moment. He did not know her name, or her place, or why she loved him so much. The gods had no place in his memory, and he had never filled in the blanks. He instinctively knew she was a god, but to what end was a mystery. Florian came closer to her, and he thought and asked aloud at the same time.

"Who are you?" He did not answer her own question, though some part of him knew it was rhetorical. She already knew. She may have always known it, writ upon the fabric of him and space and everything in between. These thoughts he didn't understand trailed through his mind, and he pushed them away. It wasn't time to get lost.

Many of the Ways felt correct, but they did not feel right. And Florian did not completely choose the one that did, but he drifted towards it, his mind somehow comfortable with the infinite possibilities laid out before him. It was as natural as breathing. He chose The Way of Rebellion.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

“And so you have chosen.” The infinite dragon grew larger in Florian’s sight. Her form growing ever more colossal with the passing of each second. It was then that Florian would notice that he was zooming through the vast space toward her. He came to drift just before her snout. Suspended there in the ocean of stars and aethereal clouds, this great beast was larger than the worlds that drifted around it. She lowered her head until Florian was staring directly into one of those blazing starlight eyes. It was not hard to imagine that with a thought, Florian could have been reduced to mere cinders and yet the fires did not burn. The light did not blind. Florian was safe. He was seen. He was loved.

“Go now, Little One. Walk your path along the Way you have chosen. One day it may lead you back to me, to this place. Until then, the world is waiting for you. Fill it with your wonders. But know this…” She leaned forward, her snout inching closer. Those gargantuan jaws could have opened and swallowed him whole but there was no danger. Gently she touched a scale on the tip of her snout to Florian’s brow and warmth passed through him again.

“You never walk alone, my little rebel.” It was spoken with a mother’s love. There, in that infinite space, this great being gave Florian just a moment to be enveloped by the purity of allowing him to just be.

And then it was over.

Florian was flying away from her. No. He wasn’t flying, he was falling. Falling.

Like a shooting star he fell back into the atmosphere of the world that spun before him. Plummeting back to the earth and away from that sacred place. He was, in that moment, a force of raw nature burning a path through the heavens as the earth raced toward him. Faster and faster he fell until he saw a yawning tear in the rift between the aethereal place he occupied and the harsh world he had left.

He landed with the sound of thunder in his wake.

---

Buildings crumbled. The ground shuddered. Magic cracked and faltered. The laws of nature rebelled against themselves. The very world around the impact site refused to abide by any conceivable way that made sense…or perhaps it did. Perhaps it made awful, terrible sense.

And Florian awoke with a startling clarity.

There at the center of a crater that was once an entire swath of Zaichaer City.

[Florian]

He was not scared of the massive dragon, and she did not hurt him. It had felt like a dream. It had felt like a world he should not have survived. Where did he belong in space? Who was he, really? He couldn't understand what was happening to him, but it made sense, it fell into place. He did not understand what was happening to him, but it became regardless.

He wasn't scared of the falling, either, but he should have been. Florian watched the aetherium tear and he plummeted. He couldn't focus on anything in his path or in his wake, and just as quickly he awoke. It could have been a dream. His eyes opened, and he was not in bed, or at his desk, or on the floor of his mother's empty apartment. He really couldn't identify where he was anymore, not with the devastation that surrounded him. It was just rubble, and he knew, with every fiber of his being, every intrinsic part of himself, that it was his fault.

Florian stood up, remarkably unscathed, and he began to climb out of the rubble. It was his fault, it was his fault. It was his fault. It was so far, and he could not ask for forgiveness for this. He didn't even understand what he did, but he knew it was him. Florian climbed over pieces of things that he might've recognized once, when they were together, but all he knew was that he wanted to get out.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

Rising from the rubble of what was once his childhood home, all around Florian, the Dread Mists raged. Chaos spread outward from the detonation zone around the crater but oddly enough, things at its center were startlingly calm. Abominations roamed the streets. People stood frozen in moments of shock and terror, their bodies crystallized into solid aetherite. But in the back of Florian’s mind, he could hear the rumblings of opportunity. For what? Time would tell.

One thing was certain however, the world would never be the same.

R E W A R D S

Name: Florian
XP: 15
Requested Lore: +13. You may use these for knowledge related to the Aetherium and the being Florian encountered. Please run them by me in DM's.


Note(s):

Florian has now ascended as the Demigod of Rebellion. He is entitled to all powers and abilities as listed under the Ascendant tier of the Demigod page. He has been added to the list of Demigods on the Religion page. When you have compiled information pertaining to your Emblem, submit it to the Support Forum for review.