Chapter Text
My body sits unused, as it has for thousands of years. It is only my mind that wanders. It must, because I was not made to follow the normal flow of time. So while it sits, shrouded in protective silence, gathering dust, I watch through the networking of flickering stars. So many mistakes made, so many things I’ll never be able to correct. Yet despite my lack of intervention, the great blackness stays where it is. I have no worry that it will consume us.
A moment, a flickering of one of the stars in the black, comforting void. It attracts my attention and I bring it down to me, watching the moment through the film of the magic that keeps my body hostage. It is a moment almost ninety thousand years after being locked away. Why does it draw me? I get as close as I can, intent on what I am seeing. I line up the surrounding moments, watching them in sequence.
A man stands there. He’s young and tall, with hair as black as the void around me, with eyes the same blue as the ocean he lives near. There’s another man with him, sitting in a chair. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes. His hair is the snow white color of the very old, his face lined. Even so, he shares the same eyes as the younger man, the same strong jaw, and the same haughty manner. Father and son, then, I think. Yet something is different between them.
I realize with a start that the son is one of my people. How can that be? We have been locked away since the age of war. We should be gone, forgotten. It is true that sometimes one of my own would be born to a human, despite the lack of a Korianan parent, but that too has ceased. Curious. Even more invested in this young man, I pay closer attention. I cannot enter the moment, and so I can’t hear them.
The father leans back in his comfortable-looking chair, a blanket around his shoulders and another over his lap. A fire roars in the hearth behind him, but the son is wearing cooler clothes; the clothes of summer. They appear to be deep in conversation, the son gesturing wildly, clearly passionate. The father looks calm and impassive, but his eyes are two chips of ice, and I can see the resolution in them. Whatever the son wants, the father isn’t willing to give. In frustration, the son stands and goes to a nearby table containing cups and a carafe of some sort of drink. He pours them a cup and sits back down, and they engage in discussion again. They’re calmer now, clearly having moved onto another subject.
I follow the son with interest. Another moment calls to me. I catch a glimpse of him kissing a woman. She’s tall, too, with the same dark black hair and olive skin as the son, but that is where their resemblance ends. Her large cat-shaped eyes are the dark green of winter trees, with a long, prominent nose and apple cheeks. She’s a striking woman, the kind that would often be called handsome rather than girlishly pretty. Squinting, I realize that she is also one of my people. How many of us are loose in the world? Why am I still trapped by the spell? I keep watching, and he draws her to him and they kiss, hands groping. I move on, giving them their privacy, wondering if this is what the father and son were arguing about.
Another scene between the father and son, and my frustration at being trapped and unable to hear them mounts. They’re arguing again, the son looks even more frustrated. This time the father is wearing a crown - black iron with chips of sapphire. A king, maybe? That meant the son was a prince. Come to think of it, his clothes did look well-made. I yearned to know more about them. Who they were, and especially where they were. I knew they weren’t in Creechan, because it never got cold enough for them to need the clothing they were wearing. As I watched, the son stormed out. The father stared thoughtfully into the fire, sipping a drink. The son’s cup sat abandoned on a nearby table. The father looked weaker than in the last scene. I had no idea how much time had passed between the two moments, I only knew that these moments were the ones that drew me.
Another time, later. The father was was laying in bed, the son sitting on the bed next to him. He was propped up by a huge pile of pillows, his hands thin and pale, cobwebs of veins on them. The son was feeding him broth. He took two sips and tried to push it away, but the son pushed it on him, knowing it would help him. Strange, I thought, that the son didn’t look sad. He looked...angry? Angry, but his body language was tense, eager like a coiled snake about to strike. It looked strange on a caretaker, a loving son. The father’s eyes closed, his body going slack. The son put the bowl on the bedside table and sat, silent, watching the father. In a moment, he stopped breathing, and an eager grin exploded across the son’s face. Were I in my body, I would have had shivers down my spine.
I watched him for a moment longer before I heard it. I great, resounding boom. The whole void shook with the feel of it, because there wasn’t really sound in the void. I listened, not moving, not thinking, completely still. Then, it came again, as if the void was a door and a fist was pounding on the other side. Ominous and loud, I felt it in my soul. Memories flooded my mind. Dark, spiked armor, weapons that should never have existed. A people who should never have existed. Technology almost rivaling that of the makers. And war. Bloodshed that nearly ripped the world apart. Screams, so many screams. The memories were filled with noise and blood. Through it all ran the thread of the magic.
Soon, I thought. Soon blood would be spilled on the stone. Soon they would be clawing at the edges of this world, and then they’d break free. I could only hope that someone found me before then.