Prelude to the End

“Wrath and fury comes

Singing a soft melody

To drown out the screams”

“If gods’ plans are cruel

Then holiness is a blade

That will slit out throats”

“Adorned in flowers

Eviscerate the heavens

And end this horror”

“It was not supposed

to be like this, but it was.

They call me ‘Destroyed’”

Once upon a time, she was a songstress. Everlasting days of golden light had filled her spirit with melodies of peace and nurturing while she had lived with her undying kin in the groves of ancient growth. Voices from across the trees would rise to meet her as she sang her harmonies to aid the blossoming petals and digging roots. But eventually those harmonies became screams.

Eventually those ancient trees became smoldering ash.

Eventually it was all destroyed, and she was told that was the way of the heavens.

Sulphur and sorrow rained down. Tears of horror had bled from her sapphire eyes as she watched the skies rip themselves open while sacred glyphs painted the canopy of green in murderous orange. The void splits gave way to fire, and the titanic beings had fallen down to her realm, where they awoke and unleashed their fury.

Only once the blazes had begun to devour entire groves did she realize who the beasts were: gods.

The very beings they had been instructed to worship were now laying waste to her world. Infernos spread until the screaming stopped, and soon only her immortal Elef kind remained. Most of her people accepted this as the gods’ will and moved on. In time, she did as well.

Ages passed and it happened again.

Then again.

Then it was set to happen again.

Softness and patience gave way to fury, and eventually her song faded. Choruses of kindness and verses of hope fell to pleas for aid and concern. None heeded her and none helped when the monsters descended once more several lifetimes later. Her people stood by as another cycle of cleansing arrived, even as she rushed into the flames to save who she could.

Few would ever know what transpired in those lost years. In the end, she was too weak, and as she lay in the ruins, burned and weeping, the songstress in her bled away. Fire consumed her name the same way it consumed rivers and glades. Songs vanished just like the laughter of the children who were now nothing more than charred stumps forever reaching for comfort.

Elef elders had condemned her reckless heresy and banished her from ever returning to the undying forest of the Old Realm.

When the fires finally died a century later, her old self was gone. All that remained was a malicious, protective creature, furiously swearing that this cruelty would never return.

This is her story.

Pray for her soul, for she shall not.