The World is Waiting

[Pharaoh]

S H A E O T H

“The World is Waiting”
33 Frost, 122

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How ironic that the Presidium of Zaichaer had once been a monument to New Atheism, before it became collateral damage to apotheosis of all things. Symbols were fickle that way. They could represent different things to different cultures and to different individuals. A single sea change might upend their meaning altogether. No more was the Presidium a towering testament to the progress of industry. Now it was a ruined representation of retribution. It was a shadow of its former state and in shadow it now dwelt- a gathering place for darkness and dread mists and an epicenter of chaos and darkness.

The surviving, mortal citizens of Zaichaer were woefully ill-equipped to breach the borders of such a place. Another irony born of fate’s fickleness was that the effects of the eclipse muted the very magic the High City sought to silence themselves. Had this long night fallen earlier, perhaps they might have exploited it to their benefit and mounted even greater heights of progress. Alas. That was not to be.

On the 33rd Day of Frost in the 122nd Year of the Age of Steel, it was not the surviving, mortal citizens of Zaichaer who trudged toward this focal point of abyssal chaos. In another irony, it was a figure from abroad who’d been demonised in Zaichaer.

“Master Talon…” The girl inclined her head.

Talon Novalys was a one who had copious cause to have wished for this fell fate to befall a culture that not only stood athwart many of his core beliefs, but one which had also claimed much from him personally.

“I thank you for casting your light through this darkness, that I might wield my Craft again. You have the gratitude of myself and my coven,” Sophie Zohl was a witch he’d met earlier in the week who was doing her best to usher hapless citizens to safety, despite the limitations to her Craft presented by the eclipse. “If you want to delve deeper…” She glanced in the direction of the Presidium with due dread, “I can’t stop you, but I would bide that you have done enough and more already. Even one of your obvious potency could-...” She cut herself off and shook her head.

“Go where you will, Master Talon, and may your dawn outshine the pitchiest of midnights.” She bowed, “I leave you.” And with that, the girl darted apace in the opposite direction of the presidium’s ruins, over which winged, mistborn mongrel monsters and abyssal wraiths swarmed around much greater, much darker and much more chaotic things.

Somewhere deep in the midst of Mist and shadow, an ancient presence cast its gaze upon Arcas, piercing through whatever guise he deigned to don.
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[Talon]

A R C A S

He was afraid.

He had every right to be. Since coming to Zaichaer, he had received naught but sharp looks and bitter sneers. Many in Zaichaer blamed him for the plight that had befallen them. In a way, they were right. The die of fate had been cast the moment he had set foot in the City of Brass two years ago. When he had made his visit attempting to foster diplomacy only to be met with problems that forced him to end his visit early. That fateful visit had decided the events that would unfold in the seasons to follow. That fateful visit still haunted him to this very day. How could it not? His life had changed irrevocably after meeting the infamous Brenner Dornkirk and his brother.

He had yet to seek out Stefan Dornkirk. He was not entirely certain that he wanted to. From what he understood, Brenner was dead. Killed in the catastrophe that had visited the city he had loved so much. It was a poetic irony that the very actions he had taken for love of his people had led to their ruination. He had no doubt that Brenner had not wanted any of this, all the same, Fate followed its own path, for one reason or another. Part of him, a very small part, felt robbed of the chance to stare the man in the face after everything he had been through. The majority of him though, was relieved to know that Brenner had died. He was not certain he would have been able to restrain himself as he had with Franky. There was still too much anger inside of him. There was still too much rage. For all the work that he had been doing, he still had so little hope.

But that was why he was staring at the Presidium so intently.

He could feel the piece of himself that was missing. It was close. Always just on the edges of his thoughts, just out of reach, within a darkness that he could not penetrate. Even so, he thought he could catch glimpses of Talon, the real Talon, every so often. It was strange. He was, at his current core, not Talon at all. He had only a smattering of Talon’s memories. Enough to be able to connect dots and conduct himself accordingly. Ever since Lyra had done the favor of splitting away Talon from the rest of him, from Arcas, he had been poignantly aware of the piece of himself that was missing. For a little while, he had been whole. The shard of his soul that had been cut away by Shaeoth’s ancient blade had finally come home and he had been filled with Hope and joy and a feeling that could only be described as being utterly complete. For the sake of his own sanity and Talon’s, he had split that piece of himself away once more.

The scars of that split had manifested in his anger, his recklessness and many other things that, in hindsight, he would struggle to reconcile for a long time to come.

“Thank you, Sophie.” He looked at the witch. He had sought out the Covens as soon as he had learned of them.

While they were not as unified as perhaps the Circle of Spells, the witches of Zaichaer knew their city and how to navigate it. He was doing everything he could to bolster their Craft in order to assist in the mending of the once great city. At first he had not been certain the witches would be powerful enough to face the threats encroaching their every day lives. He had been proven wrong. The Covens had a subtle power of their own, something wholly different from the more obvious grandeur of Kalzasern wizards. After having worked with them for the past few weeks, he could see how and why they evaded the city’s authorities for so long.

“I must go there. I have…” He hesitated. It was there. The uncanny sense of destiny. How many times had he felt it across the ages? How many times had he gone into the maw of the newest evil knowing that it would end in death and the renewal of yet another cycle?

More times than he wanted to count.

He was so tired of it. He was weary of the constant battle. For thousands of years, across too many lives, he had played the part of the Divine Avenger of the Gods. As the world was plunged into terrible suffering, he would seek out the source and perish to put a stop to it. Over and over and over again.

“I have unfinished business here.” Always unfinished.

Would He be there waiting for him?

“Wait.” He called out to her. Extending a hand, he stirred his aether into motion. Through the Rune of Elements he condensed his aether into a crystal no bigger than a marble. He imbued it with the element of Fire but he touched those flames with his Light. Dawnfire blossomed inside the crystal. He extended it to her.

“Take this. Be safe.” When she had taken his dawnfire crystal, he extended his wings, Talon’s wings, and set off toward the ruined darkness of the Presidium.

Are you there, Brother? Have you taken him? Have you finally been consumed by your madness?

Will you finally kill Hope?

[Pharaoh]

S H A E O T H

Arcas was no stranger to the creatures of darkness, nor those of chaos. He’d been fighting them in one form or another throughout this life and others. More recently, he’d taken to waging a campaign against the recent bolstering of their number as the effects of the preternatural eclipse wrought havoc throughout the realms he traversed. Typically, they were drawn to his celestial luminescence unless he was actively shielding it from their sight. It seemed to rile them toward aggression, even as they feared it. As if their base impulse was to stamp it out for its brilliance. But as he soared toward the ruined Presidium, the darkness deferred. The creatures of darkness calmly cleared a path for him. Moreover, the shadowy beasts seemed to shepherd the Mistborn away. Those that tried to break their shadowy line were set upon and torn asunder. And thus an aisle was cleared in a sky otherwise teeming with fell creatures, all leading toward an orb of inky blackness that hovered in the skies once scraped by the lofty heights of the Presidium.

The orb was strikingly still and unnaturally black. It didn’t swirl with smoke or shadow, it was simply a still, empty hole in the middle of the sky. If it was rotating one couldn’t tell for every iota of it looked exactly the same. No light cast a sheen upon any inch of the orb, it seemed more like an absence than a presence. It emitted no beckoning urge and no impulse to approach it was thrust into Arcas’ heart, save for that which was born of his own desires. The orb simply gaped like a wide open eye at the advancing demigod.

As Arcas drew near to it, the shades and spectres around him silenced their typical, blood-curdling shrieks and simply hovered upon the forceful winds and watched. Those whipping winds were the only sound in the air around this foreboding void, until…

“It is time that Light, once again, deferred to darkness.” The voice was half whisper and half gravel, but it carried through the shadow- amplified by every pitchy creature- by every inch of the copious dark that surrounded them and, most of all, by the void orb itself.

“Enter.”

[Talon]

A R C A S

He was expected. He felt a pang in his chest as a note of dread wound its way through him. The cold creep of familiarity crawled up his spine and presented itself as a memory.

A rising tower that jut out from the bones of the earth like a crooked finger. It climbed higher and higher into the skies until it vanished in a swirling vortex of voracious clouds intent on devouring the world. Through the eyes of Andrus, Arcas looked upon the tattered remains of the fabled Godspire. It lived up to its name. Lining the field of battle were droves of creatures that could only be conjured up from the warped storms that perpetually raged around it. Despite the chaos around the Godspire, the legions of monsters were oddly tranquil. They looked upon him not with the eyes of beasts made wrong, but with a dark intelligence. An intelligence and a hunger. He stepped forward and they cleared a path.

So this was it, his destiny was not upon bloody fields…but in a broken sky.

Once again Arcas was in a broken sky. Once again the creatures of his ancient adversary parted for him so that he might meet his Fate. Perhaps for the last time.

He came to a stop before the perfect sphere of equally perfect darkness. Had Shaeoth’s darkness always been so complete? He did not think so. This was something different. Everything about this felt different and yet somehow still the same.

“It is time that Light, once again, deferred to darkness.”

The word reverberated in the world around him. He was not entirely certain they were said aloud or if they were spoken directly to his soul. He could feel them just as strongly as he could hear them. Spoken in a voice that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He raised a hand and extended it toward the inky black orb of Void in front of him.

Enter.

“TALON!” His head snapped in the direction of the voice that called his name. A deep voice that brought warmth and comfort to his heart. His heart beat faster in his chest. Aoren was speeding toward him through the air. Fear. Terror. Love all written on his face.

“TALON! NO!” Aoren’s eyes were wild. Aoren was reaching for him, a mad desperation etched into every inch of his body. Arcas expression softened in both love and sadness. He loved this man, this dragon, as much as Talon did. He had loved so many people across so many lives. He understood now the visceral pain that Raxen had felt during that sparring match. The broken way in which the Demigod of Swords had whispered to him.

"How many times do I have to watch you die?"

How many times would he have to relive this scenario, over and over and over again? How many times would he have to give up everything just to save a world that seemed determined to break him down and shackle him?

“TALON!” Aoren shouted, a tremble in his voice, desperate to get to him, heedless of the danger of the throng of creatures in his way. Arcas looked at the sphere of void.

Enter.

Arcas looked to the broken sky. His vision was blurry as the welling of tears gathered in his eyes.

How many times?

He moved forward. He crossed the threshold.

Maybe Hope only could be found in Darkness. Maybe.

One way or another, this would be the last time. He could not keep doing this.

Not anymore.

[Pharaoh]

S H A E O T H

The creatures of chaos raged toward Arcas, as creatures of darkness fought them back from the staging area before the dark orb. Those closer to the centre of the sticking place merely observed in still silence as the demigod approached the darkness... as the dragon flew toward him, shouting pleas from an anguished heart. The watchers were impassive. Until Talon breached the void, and then they turned their grim attentions upon Aoren, who would not be afforded the same grace as his bondmate. The shades who had been fighting back the Mistborn monsters, turned their attentions to he aberrant entity in their midst. The Mistborn, too, took note of one who did not belong amongst them. And all the beasts in this hotbed of terrors descended upon Aoren.

The void was like a universe unto itself, and a primordial one at that. As Arcas crossed the threshold, he was consumed. That same nothingness that he'd seen before him, now surrounded him completely. The living beacon of light was enveloped in an abyss that dimmed even his lofty lustre to the point that he couldn't even see his own hands in front of his face. He could see nothing, in fact, and there he lingered in the midst of naught.

Floating in the void, he was bereft of all his senses. The only thing he could feel was his own breath. The only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat. Beyond that, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell... even his aetheric senses offered nothing- No sign of slipstream, aether sense, or aught else. And there he remained at length. Long enough that he would have to wonder whether he'd entered into a lightless oblivion from which he was never intended to return. A pocket universe carved out especially for him. Would the notion appeal to him? A time to rest and reflect over the length of his existences in utter, holistic peace? Or would it feel like a hell for one ever compelled to act to be unable to do so in any tangible way? He would need to resign himself, at some point, to the possibility that this was to be his existence until the end of time. And only when he'd done so, did something that felt like it might have been a mirage born of his imaginings fade into existence: A pair of eyes so dark a shade of purple that they were scarcely discernible with so black a backdrop.

"I remember so much, now..." Came that same, half-whispered voice. "So many beginnings, so many conclusions..." There was more of weariness than wonder in that breathy, voiceless whisper. "A time before the sky was a sky, for it was all of Creation. A time when darkness knew nothing of shadow, for no light had yet been born to cast it." The eyes came into clear focus, and they were staring at Arcas. In this absolute blinding blackness, they could see him more clearly than ever.

"In every instance I have preceded you, Little Brother. After all this time... Why do you still vie against darkness?"

[Talon]

A R C A S

Aoren watched in horror as the love of his life disappeared into the black void sphere that hung suspended over the Presidium. He felt a welling of despair and grief and fear blossom inside of him.

“NO!” His wild cry sent a shockwave out from him as his fear manifested as a blastwave of elemental fire and silver dawnfire. “I won’t let you take him from me!”

He angled his body, ready to fight with everything he had in order to get past the legion of creatures swarming over the ruined Presidium.

“Aoren!” Mathias voice called out to him. He looked down to see the young man stumbling back as a wave of creatures was barreling toward him. Fear was very evident in Mathias. His eyes went back to the void. The wall of creatures was only getting denser.

“Aoren, help! Please!” With another rage and grief filled cry, Aoren teleported to the ground in front of Mathias. He released a storm of Fire and Lightning before grabbing Mathias and retreating away from the horde.

---

Darkness. Absolute and impenetrable. It surrounded him. So complete was the darkness of the void that there was no illuminating it, not even with his Light. He felt a weightlessness that was both disorienting and comforting. There was silence. A complete quiet that demanded nothing from him. For a time, he simply allowed himself to drift in the dark. The dark itself did not scare him. He had been chasing after the Darkness for as long as he could remember. He had been seeking it with every fiber of his being. Eventually he found that he could not tell whether he was making progress or simply drifting aimlessly. There was no telling if he was even moving. He simply floated in the vast emptiness that was all-consuming. It was peaceful. It allowed him to reflect.

He remembered the moment he had be reawakened into the world of Ransera this time. Talon had been fighting to save the lives of people he loved. He had thrown himself, as he always did, head first into danger and for that selfless act, he had lost his mortal life. That was the first moment he could rightly recall as his own when it came to observing the life of his reincarnation from a more present place. As Talon had matured in his grasp and understanding of being a demigod, the gap between them had steadily closed. He had been attacked. He had been tested. Ultimately, he had lost his mortal father and been shackled undeservedly. All of these things, he had witnessed and either been passenger to or active participant in. Part of him wanted nothing more than to simply drift in this quiet place. Part of him wanted to simply leave it all behind and never look back.

But he could not do that. Not because he felt compelled by duty or obligation. He had come to love this life. Perhaps more than any he had lived previously. There was family waiting for him. There were loved ones.
He had a son.

That thought alone was more than enough to solidify the idea that he could not drift in this darkness forever. He did not want to.

He did not want to abandon his child to a life left wandering through a world alone.

He did not want his son to suffer the same life of war of loneliness that he had been abandoned to by his own Father.

As soon as that thought solidified in his mind, the eyes appeared. That voice rang through the abyss. He looked up into those eyes that stared at him so clearly. He did not know what to feel in the face of them. As this being’s question filled the silence, he stared steadily back into those dark purple eyes.

Everything he had done, every action he had taken, every battle he had fought, every death he had suffered had all been done to achieve only one thing. The memory of a little boy sobbing over the broken corpse of his mother, staring at the spot on the ground where his brother had been snatched into the shadows, left in the ash covered wastes of a long lost place without his father, still haunted him.

“Darkness became my enemy when It killed my mother." The memory of the Crooked Man piercing his mother's flesh and leaving her a lifeless husk on the ground flashed across his mind. The sight of that being who was so ancient, so alien, so Other, still made his skin crawl even as a memory.

"Darkness became my enemy when It stole my brother and made him Its slave." How vividly he remembered those impossibly dark black tendrils reaching for him, dragging him into a pit of pitch blackness. He remembered vividly desperately calling out for his elder brother's help. Seon helped him. Sacrificed himself to save him. It was only when he reached young adulthood that he had truly grasped how enduring that sacrifice was.

"All I ever wanted was my family. Darkness took up arms and ripped it apart." He looked into those impossibly ancient eyes. "How can I not vie against that?"

[Pharaoh]

S H A E O T H

A sigh.

"How tiresome." The words were infused with an aching, ancient weariness.

Slowly more of the figure's features came into view: The dark purple eyes took on more of a crimson tinge, the chiseled, masculine features of a pale face capped off with bone white hair melted toward visibility. It was not that any semblance of light intruded upon this realm of absolute darkness. It was more that the longer he spent there, the more Arcas' sight acclimated to it. At Shaeoth's side, another pair of eyes, these deepest midnight blue, came into view along with the telltale stripes of matching hue. Pale fingers stroked the spine of the purring shadow cat.

"Would you rehash the sundry slights dealt between us through the ages?" Shaeoth mused. "Would you reframe Seon's liberation in such reductive terms as theft and mark darkness the unprovoked aggressor?" He shook his head, and cast his now crimson gaze askance of Arcas to regard the beautiful emptiness around them.

"In a primordial universe of tranquility, it was light that broke that first, primal peace. When all was simple and serene it was light that intruded- bursting like a mewling babe into the garden of creation and cursing the original demiurges with a yearning they still haven't learned how to assuage. How selfish it was to blemish that palace of perfection..." He trailed off, as if recalling belatedly that a question had been posed. His crimson gaze trailed back to Arcas as he pondered it.

How can I not vie against it?

"You say that because you are still lost in the pattern, little brother." Was it a term of endearment or a condescending diminutive? It was so hard to tell, delivered as it was in that world-weary voice. "I did not welcome you into my presence to speak my scripted lines and go through the motions of our cyclical saga. Are you not enervated by such endless repetition?"

"How many times do I have to watch you die?" An echo of Aoren's voice pervaded the void, or perhaps it was intruding upon Talon's mind alone. As the echo faded, the shadow tiger ceased to purr, Shaeoth's caressing hand halting abruptly.

"How can you not vie against darkness? By choosing to go off script. By making the decision to disrupt the banality of time's termlessly turning wheel. Forsake your father and forget your name, brother..." Now there was passion surging out of the exhaustion and camaraderie, or at least want of it, in the term he assigned to the presence across from him.

"I offer you an invitation." Shaeoth floated through the void to close the gap between himself and Arcas. "Break the world with me."

[Talon]

A R C A S

“Break the world?” The words were spoken as a whisper. He stared at the man in front of him and for the first time in millennia, he could see the echo of their resemblance.

“The world is already broken, brother.” He said that final word with neither mockery nor weariness.

“Do you think I do not understand the dance we have repeated? Over and over and over again? This is no different. Here you stand, telling me how wrong I still see things and yet you offer nothing new to break this cycle.” He gestured back to where he could only assume was the material world of Ransera.

“Was it not you who marched across the Old World, burning and destroying everything in your path? Did you not promise to Lyrielle to raise the foundations of the Old Kingdoms and bring the Ancients to their knees in vengeance? Was it not you who whispered promises in Ilixidor’s ears of a New Age, even as he slaughtered and transformed countless innocents into unspeakable horrors? Was it not you who gave the Mage-King of Lys the tools to build his Spire?” He motioned to the world around them.

“Have you not cast the world into despair by unleashing these hordes upon it? What are you searching for? What is the meaning behind all of this? Has the world not suffered enough?” Arcas shook his head before hanging it tiredly. After a moment he looked up, eyeing Shaeoth.

“You may have a new face but you speak only more of the same. Always you have striven for one thing, toiling away to plunge the world into ruination and despair. You think I have not seen what the world could be like when Light and Darkness work together in harmony?” He raised a hand casting a small orb of silver fire that became a window through which the outside world could be seen. It showed not familiar faces but the faces of men and women who bore his Emblem. Men and women who carried the fire of his Light into the world with them.

And every single one of them carried this new and unmistakable mark of Darkness.

Most hesitated to use it but there were those who saw it as a chance to dive headfirst into something new. Those that worked to balance the Light and Dark of the powers they wielded did so cautiously but the result was shocking. It was something different.

“Darkness is not my enemy. You made it that way. You are not my enemy. You have chosen to be. You are still choosing to be. If Light and Dark can be in balance today, then I know there was a time when they were before. Not the emptiness that you are trying to paint as perfect, it was not. You are not seeking Harmony, you are seeking more of the same.” He spread his arms wide and gestured around them then back to the flame that was a window into the world beyond. It showed people, ordinary people, fleeing for their lives and struggling against misshapen terrors.

“This? This is not the way forward, brother. This is not Darkness. This is Madness and Horror.”

[Pharaoh]

S H A E O T H

"Broken? This world is scarcely scuffed." Shaeoth scoffed, "You could make a different choice..." But he paused to listen as Arcas spoke on. He would not interrupt nor attempt to answer the rhetorical questions as they were posed. It was clear the man needed to vent his vexations, and it served neither of their aims for him to respond in kind.

His face was impassive and, by and by, he slowly turned and swept back to his familiar, letting his fingers stroke through the fur as he contemplated the matters posed by his counterpart. At the conjuration of the luminescent orb, he cast a glance over his shoulder and squinted at the strain of looking at sudden light surrounded by abject blackness.

"I do not seek a return to the peace of primeval purgatory. That paradise is lost, never to return. But what I seek feels, for the moment, immaterial..." His voice trailed off and with the waning of his words, his face seemed overcast. He extended his arms and legs, rather like he was floating idly upon the waters of a placid lake of onyx. Once more bathed in darkness so only the outline of his pale features could be seen faintly. Only his eyes, fading again from crimson to purple, were clearly visible.

"I have told you why I welcomed you." His words were whispered... an aural shadow of a voice, but there was a warmth that had been absent during his prior musings. It was as if he was more present, now- closer to the concerns of the breathing world.

"Why don't you tell me why you've come? What is it you seek, brother?"

Perchance Shaeoth, too, could make a different choice... Perchance.

[Talon]

A R C A S

“Told me--? You have told me nothing. Break the world? That says nothing. That tells me nothing.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, working to push past the weariness of tired arguments. It was Arcas who stepped closer this time. Why had he come here? He could not see him but he could feel Talon. He could feel the piece of himself that was missing.

“Why?” There it was. The question that was at the heart of it all. If Shaeoth wanted change, if the Darkness wanted things to be different, then why all of this? There was an element of difference to this meeting but he could not place his finger on it. Shaeoth was less wild, less oppressive. More powerful, that was without question. The Dark One of old could not have pulled off something like this. Not by himself. There was something here he was not seeing. Something just beneath the surface.

“Hope.” He said the word softly. He looked into those impossibly dark eyes and he felt the stirrings of it himself.

“You are holding on to Hope. What is the change you are wanting? What you are seeking cannot be immaterial because that seems to be what is at the very heart of this. All of this.” The silver fire faded and vanished, plunging them back into the dark where only Shaeoth’s eyes were visible once more.

“Seon. What are you hoping for, brother?” He was practically pleading to his brother. Hoping that there was some iota of him left that would hear him.