Sylphe
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Vulture was a constellation that included many others. Much like Ophiuchus, a man and snake, this one was made up of the wings which covered the dome, and the claws, which Milo’s gaze followed to meet viterbi falling.
It wasn’t a fall. The moon’s gravity slowed the little robot into a gentle sail.
Something was amiss with that sail. It was too slow for the moon’s quiet pull. It could never drag him forward, not even as weak as he was, and so soon faded into the back of his mind when he needed the front to deal with icy blades and fireworks.
They had been the more pressing affair back then.
The waters of the arena surged around his legs. His hunch was right, and in a worry of what the falling robot’s fate may be, he tried to rush over to catch him. The Moon’s pull had truly intensified, and Milo took a stumble forward, resulting in a pained hiss as a jolt of agony up his leg made its injuries known, the frostbitten foot crashing upon the rocky surface. The celestial body upon them had started breaking, and just as the silvery gray rocks and miniature mountains disappeared within the forming singularity, the pull had become so much more powerful so fast. There was nothing he could do but succumb to its force.
Ice ran across his spine as even the feathers within him dreaded. Not even the Vulture had dared to get past the event horizon. Making that mistake once was enough. Like a fletchling intent on getting out of the nest too early, it nearly didn’t make it back in time.
veeterbee, he tried to call, but even breathing felt like trying to move a mountain, even opening his eyes was too much effort under the tremendous force. With all his willpower held to keep the orb in place, there was no way for his mind to reach out.
veeterbee-!
He stumbled forward, until there was nothing to stumble on.
veeterbee, I- I have failed you- you too-
He felt the warmth of the sun on his back. He felt the pressure lessen. Though, lessen was not the right word. It spread out, it grew. It tugged on every little cell of his body rather than just the ones closest to oblivion. It was slow.
Relentless.
It knew it had all the time in the world, for it was very, very old.
Planets and stars and galaxies would meet their destruction before it even took its next breath.
Milo opened his eyes with great effort, despite already knowing. The chills, they dampened any last ray of sunlight that had tried to reach him. Though he knew there was no way for them to, if they didn’t want to lose their way forever.
Before him was a black hole.
It was so unbearably enormous it was nearly all he saw. Somewhere at the edges of his vision, glittering and spinning towards its doom, was the event horizon. Not even a speck of light from this last dance crossed the border. The darkness here was absolute in its form, and Milo wasn’t even sure if it was darkness at all anymore. Maybe it was the absence of even that, a step further from darkness being the absence of light.
Feeling his breathing heave, his heart in a fever pitch, Milo realized the danger of this slow fall. The horizon, there at the edge of his vision.
He had gotten too close, far too close.
Struggling to breathe, struggling to move against the slow and sure pull, it was futile to try and move away. The icy creeps, they formed a feeling, a feeling desperate and vile but too well known.
There was one way.
If he let go, if he transformed here, among the stars, and flapped with his wings spread wide, perhaps he could just make it in time if he made the decision fast. But something stung in that heart of his, something black and driven deep. To invite the scavenger was to invite doom. It was to let go and grow mad with the thin weavings of the cosmos between his fingers. It was-
A flash of flame.
A woman, begging. A claw, kicking her away. A talon, tearing through her in fury.
A beak, speaking words that bound fate itself, made it kill.
N-no.
Never again.
I- I- didn’t mean it-
He was flying. Without wings, without direction. He was falling into a place where ascent and descent lost all meaning.
Can you curse without meaning to, Milo?
He could have sworn he saw something move as space bent in great lines of silver and gold, like a mirror in the black. Another him, just there to the left, just as helpless, just as accusatory. He dreaded thinking the image would turn and glare, give himself the pale look he wore right now. He could have sworn that for as long a blink lasts - even though blinking here felt like an aeon - the twin images to his sides were of a man and a beast.
Can you drain and burn without meaning to, Milo?
He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to see them turn towards him.
The pull tore. The pull ripped, and all that was left was to stare out, at the former surge of light, now a fainter and fainter circle somewhere in the far distance as the absolute enveloped him. It grew smaller and smaller, the sunlight from Fountain within its bounds.
Can you take a gift and misuse it?
Somewhere there, Peregrine. Somewhere there, veeterbee. Pietersite. The soldier of winter, and his executioner of embers. He was leaving them all behind. And perhaps, he thought as the pressure tore at him so hard he struggled to remain at all there, it was for the best.
The pull- Milo couldn’t breathe anymore, blood pulsing wildly in his ears.
He knew what followed, now that even his orb couldn’t keep him in one piece.
And he didn’t want to see that either.
He lost the orb. It slipped through and became the singularity.
Can you tear and kill without meaning to?
It was a moment, both short and sharp and stretched into eternity. Of snapping, of being pulled apart, by something far greater than a set of sparkling talons. His consciousness flickered out in a surge of energy.
Floating.
Softness and a wind that shook the ground..
Milo opened his eyes to great pine trees. Their needles looked soft, and as tall as they were, they swayed with the wind. Between their thin crowns, distant stars. There was no moon, just a single star of bright blue.
It appeared to dance, almost moving with the wind. Milo blinked, and realized he could see. This time, clearly and without afterimages of an executioner’s blade. He could hear the wind and the surge of his orb without feeling like a swimmer lost in unknown trenches.
His orb.
His orb was here. He held it close to his chest as he sat up. Its shade a vibrant red, the celestial black hidden deep beneath. Its surface moved with the wind. He wondered when he bled to fill it up. As far as he could tell, there was no blood when…
The memory was still reverberating in his skull. Bright red and orange and burning and tearing and nerves on fire. And then nothing. He shivered. A split second where all the threads that made him up were untangled and lifeless.
But he was still here. Why?
Milo got up, and realized, to his surprise, that there was feeling in his toes again. Had the grass here felt a little less thick, he’d take his shoes off and run, here in those silent woods. But instead, he huddled into his cloak, and pressed on. The tall, glowing grains of the grass left seeds on his clothes. Bright cerulean, sat atop stems of black, they looked almost like little lanterns.
And walking, eyes flickering from one side to another, as if he could expect someone to pop up, he realized something else. The trees were pitch black, and swayed just a little too much to be trees. He walked towards one, touched, and pulled away in surprise. They weren’t trees at all, at least those he knew. Those, they were… They were flesh. This close, he could sense that. Though if there was any blood within, that he couldn’t tell.
A curiosity sparkled within Milo as he continued along the “pines”. To pull them apart, see what they’re made of. He followed whatever direction his heart pleased before choosing the wind’s source. It was strange how monotone it was. The star was not very reliable with how it appeared there in one moment, and in another place when he looked away. He wondered what had happened to him, and mostly, why. He didn’t feel dead, in fact, very much the opposite. His threads flared with life. But there was something off about them. They felt a little too bright for him. His hands with all of their imperfections, exactly as pale as before. His cloak, with a loose thread where there always was one, its black softened by the sun. But just like he had seen in the toy Lunases out there in the stands, there is a difference between wear and something being made anew to look worn. It had always been that way, and never once young or new.
He’d probably study that feeling and his hands for a while if he didn’t come up to some broken up buildings, whole parts of them severed and floating. And the closer he got, the more he realized that so was he. Every step of his had extra spring, and his hood and cloak flowed as if gravity was in a slumber.
In a way, he got to the moon, too.
But between those buildings… He couldn’t help but shrink. In those shadows between them, it almost felt as if there would be eyes, heads, staring. Any moment now. Looking at the ruins, he saw the ones he scattered, with flicks of flame supplied by his mind. The people, crying out at him before they became a part of his orb. In those woods, creatures the vulture had changed forever to suit his whims.
Somewhere in those halls, a bloodline cursed to be just a line, with all of the blood spilling at the slightest break of the skin.
And no matter how much he tried to fix what damage he had done, by giving up that corrupting power, he gave up the chance to reverse its effects.
Why was he brought back?
He almost felt anger bubble up in his heart as he entered what appeared to be an astronomy tower of some sort. Charred stairboards broke up under his feet, splinters sent levitating. And there, at its top, a sundered wall, with the view forward. Drawings of fireflies lined the walls, made of cinder and blue lanternseed. He could tell they’d been used to conduct power before, but couldn’t anymore. Whatever lived here was long gone.
Save for one.
In front of him, he saw a blackness, a void among the stars. A better look, and he realized that it was moving, sleepily and slowly. It was a neck, adorned with glittering fur that Milo recognized as his trees and lantern grass. And on top of it, a wise head of a great snapping turtle, its beak sharp and large enough to tear through planets.
The bright star was its eye.
And then he saw something else, and his heart sank. Where the neck met its shoulders, a tear, a wound. Oozing the void out and away. It was larger than he remembered. Senseless, the physician turned blood mage ran down those stairs, sending more sharp splinters to float and hover, and before he knew, he ran through the fields of lanterngrass closer and closer towards the wound.
He slowed down and came to an abrupt stop as he met the end of a cliff, bits of rubble falling down. It wasn’t getting any closer, and it never would, not unless he was willing to live a thousand lifetimes to get there. Even with dread and guilt, knowing to not bring attention to himself, he just couldn’t help it.
“Hello?”
He had to help, in any way he could.
And as if his voice had somehow carried over lightyears of distance, the creature peered down on him, twisting its neck and straining its wound. He cringed. With horror, he realized that it knew him, and wasn’t exactly happy about his existence. The enormous head had already started turning away, the eye winking out of vision, fields and forests plunging into darkness.
“Wait!”
It gave him one look, and he could sense the displeasure from it. His skin crawled. It was the same displeasure he felt from the pillar back under the moon, as it came down on the hateful parasite.
“I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I-”
I didn’t know. I didn’t want to.
The power, it was too much, it did this to me, why didn’t you stop me?
Please-
He realized, looking into that great iris-less eye, that perhaps it was too late for forgiveness. That perhaps some things were done for and unable to be brought back. His heart stung at the thought.
But that… that didn’t matter to him. Not here. Not anymore. He wasn’t here to right his wrongs, he just…
“I can make it stop hurting. I don’t want anything, I-. Just, please. Let me help you.”
The Being stared, and he stared back, just as hopelessly. The rage seemed to wane, though not fully. It wanted it to stop hurting. But… Milo realized he didn’t think it through. The wound was lightyears away, lightyears wide, too. There was no way he could reach it. There was no way he and his orb would be strong enough.
That is, unless… There was one way.
Perhaps the way wasn’t to hide, but to learn. To not make the same mistake again.
Or he was just trying to look for an excuse.
Either way, he was about to do something very stupid.
He imagined how it would be if he somehow found himself truly dead. If he’d meet his little Niji. What she would say, what she would do.
She’d probably ask where his feathers were, and he’d hold her close, and ask if she’d missed him. And she’d say yes. But she’d also say that she missed Nima a little more.
And Anima would curl around her shoulders in the form of her beloved rat, Lin, who she dreamed of owning ever since he had found her.
Milo spread his arms and focused. He searched within the endless plumes of feather, power locked away and struggling to be free, to breathe.
Unfortunately, their lifestyle didn’t allow for a pet. A rat wouldn’t be happy travelling, and as much as he could renew its health, she was old and bright enough to tell. She was a bright kid. He loved her so much.
The space between him and the Turtle, the time within his fingers, the blood of a celestial within his orb and himself, they shuddered with increasing violence.
He loved her so much.
“Anima!”
Milo called, his voice an echo, piercing, an avian call.
“Spread our sinful wings.”
He spread them, and he felt them growing. He could take flight, like an arrow between the stars. He could make the thread of creation bend to his will. It was so clear now, almost as if a haze was blown from his mind, as if his muscles remembered an art long forgotten. Every scale, every tree of this cosmic giant, its heavy beating heart. He could take them apart with ease and form something new.
He wasn’t the Vulture. Not anymore. Milo opened his eyes, almost stuck overwhelmed with a spray of colour and feelings much greater than he remembered. His wings, infinite. His claws, sharp enough to rend the world.
He focused on the wound. It was so messy, so untangled, so infected with cosmic garbage it made him furious. Slowly, and yet faster than any planet could move, it came back together. And his lungs, they heaved. Feathers formed there too, stinging and piercing. A sharp, throbbing ache pierced his head.
Just a little longer. He could be enormous, he could be a constellation, but he was not that anymore. He was a man, a mortal.
The wind of the Turtle’s breath had calmed. The tear had been healed, the great veins of void whole again. There’d be a scar, but that was the least of his worries.
“How…”
How are you feeling, He struggled to ask. It was hard to speak with a beak, even as it was fading away.
Did it work? He couldn’t. He felt his vision flicker, the colours of the world all around blur and blend its threads. “I-I.” He brushed his arm, trying to still his wobble, and watched helplessly as an entire plume of feathers fell out, sailing to the nothing below.
“It’s been a while s-since I- did anything like this…”
The Being’s shining eyes were but an afterimage as his mind cut out, came back like a blip, and then was gone again. His knees buckled, and Milo plummeted into the depths below.
He came to see the stars.
He did not recognize any constellations here either.
He was too tired to make new ones, and the stars were too old and far apart.
Milo coughed, and feathers came out.
The last thing he could sense in any way was a warm, deep breath and coming to a sudden stop. Hanging in the maw of something enormous. Something taller than even the nebulous pillars of creation, ever making its way forward. Slowly, but now with a little more spring in its gargantuan steps, ever towards the end of days. Or a new beginning.
Same thing, really.
The space above the pedestal shivered, and then something tore a clean hole into the shimmering noon air. The crowd's calls gained on excitement, on confusion, on fear. Out breathed glittering dust of gray and silver, and with them, the Paragon.
Asleep, floating, his hair dancing as if gravity had no hold over it.
A great, pitch black and thorned snout of a cosmic turtle nudged him gently forward before retreating.
The paragon sailed to his spot and awoke to the crowd’s cheer. Almost anxiously, but with a smile, he regarded those stands. He brushed the stardust off his arm, and found on his shoulders a remainder of vulture feathers. Deep black and yet glittering with starlight against the sharp sun. A warning.
Chosen, on a condition.
Somewhere, within those stands, he was looking for a dragon, for Peregrine. And as he found those two black eyes, the weight of those words landed deeper in his soul.
Chosen, given a chance to stop the hurting.
Milo breathed in, and the orb pulsed. His eyes flicked across the adversaries. A lady of smoke and her angel. A raider seeking to bring disease to his orb. Pie… Pietersite? What was xe doing here? He turned his gaze away. Tendrils of red curled around his fingers. Appearing to almost sprout from them, threads of crimson, pinions.
To tie all of the loose ends, to start anew.
With an exhale, he pulled his arms upward. Blood sharpened into the thinnest, sharpest crystal, but in that lay their strength. They twirled between his fingers, now nearly transparent blades.
He who wishes to be reborn shouldn’t fear death.
And with a hurl and a roar, the blades cut air itself as they flew. A disgusting screech was the only warning they’d hold for the dragon seeking the frost seraph’s wrath.
“Warrior with a heart of ice!” Milo called out, running towards Crail. A stream of blood leaked from Anima, and formed a disc, thin and crystalline, without its trademark rough edges. Soon, a blade hovered next to his open palm. “Face your darkness and rage! Conquer yours and mine with me!”
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