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You have lost so much in your life, and no matter what you try, you know you will lose more. You refuse to lose more.
You fight to keep what is yours and the fire in your throat keeps you alive. You fight to keep the stars and write down their names even as they slip through your pale clawed hands and you cannot read your own writing when dawn’s light sweeps across the land like fire in a forest. You fight against the idea of a new name, a name that does not belong to your Country. You let people call you how they wish because no matter what, it is NOT YOUR NAME and you do not let the fire in your throat burn those who ask. You cannot remember your name. You want to remember who you are, want to remember your friends, your family, your life, anything. You’ve Wished and Wished and Wished and Wished for your name but it has been years and you tried to speak your name but flames rose from your ever-burning soul and scorched your throat. You will never take a new name. You will never belong to Vaugarde, even though you have tried. You had once tried to let go of your Country, but you can’t. You can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t.
You cling to what you once knew even as you allowed Vaugarde to Change you like a dog clings to its master. You learned their language, ate their food, learned their names and their ideals and their religion and met their families. You learned to speak without fire and flames in your every step because you cannot bear the idea of hurting them.
It is still not yours. You know what is yours, and it is not Vaugarde. The Universe sings to you in the dead of night and the stars glisten and glimmer and blister and burn with a light so bright you see it thousands of years away, and you are filled with a yearning to go Home. You tried to speak of the night lit with distant lanterns and the scorching sun to anyone who would listen, tried to explain the stars and the planets to the Housemaidens that took you in but they do not understand. They do not think you are telling the truth that is seared into your bones, your skin, your scales, your mind, they dismiss what you say and change the topic. It makes you want to roar with fury, to let yourself be consumed by flame.
But they love you, they are people who have cared for you, clothed you, fed you, and taught you how to forge metal in unfamiliar fires so you can protect them in turn with metal plates that hide the draconic chitin covering your skin.
You will not dare to brand their skins with your wrath.
You are the Armored One, the Defending One, the Dark One, and the Protecting One.
The Universe made you such, and you will follow it until your ashes are scattered on the mountain tops and you are laid to rest in a blanket of snow.
You did your job well, and channeled your fire and fury into a shield. You hid the parts that do not make you human, and became something else instead in accordance to the Universe’s will. You helped guide people to the House that took you in, when they were running away from people who do not Love like you do. You help them like Vaugarde has helped you, guiding them so they can be fed and clothed and sleep in warm beds and be loved. You helped fight against the Sorrows that plague the land because they have turned on it’s people and attack without mercy with wails that can freeze wildfires in their place.
You learn that they belong to a god that you once knew but whose name sounds wrong.
They tell you it’s a cruel god, and you know they are wrong. They tell you that it’s destruction incarnate, you do not believe them. They tell you that they take a person’s old self and turn it into a monster filled with Sorrow for something you cannot name.
They are wrong. You know this in your scales, your flesh, your bones, your soul, you know they are wrong. The Weeping One is gentle and kind and it is not something commanded by ice and cruelty. They are the Guiding One, the Starlit One, the-
…the…
…They are…
The Weeping God is destruction incarnate, and you reject the idea of worshipping it. You cannot follow a being who can only break things, not when you’ve done your best to mold your claws into nails and learn to defend what is yours. Not when you’ve already lost so much.
You learn how to muffle your growls and hide your fangs and be like Vaugardians, because it all you can do. You cannot bear the idea of parting from your House, you cannot bear the idea of someone looking at you and seeing a monster rather than the protector you Wish to be. You are not human, but you are trying to be. You do not want to be the four-horned beast that marks you as Other.
(Something in you tells you that your horns and scales are a blessing. Your ever-fading memories tell you it’s a blessing to be covered in thick scales that hardly anything can pierce, a blessing to be led by flames. That you do not need to wear metal armor because the Universe already gave you armor imbedded into your skin so you may protect others. You do not understand, these people are scared of what you are. How can it be a blessing? It’s a curse, isn’t it? You did something to deserve this. Something to deserve an inhuman nature. Something to deserve the slow incineration of your humanity.)
You thought, for a very long time, that you were alone.
You thought there was no one else who was a beast like you, no one else with claws, fangs, but they did not have your scales or sharp eyes like you. You thought you were the last of your kind, the only monster wearing human skin, desperate to fit in but desperate not to lose what little you remember. You hide what you are, you protect what you are, and do not show others. You have to protect the fire in your throat that keeps you going in the face of your grief.
You tamed your long darkless hair and filed down your horns to hide them in it. You hid your claws in gauntlets and learned to smile without fangs. You do not growl. You do not roar. You do not snarl. You do not scorch the earth with your fury of what was lost.
You once tried to use Body Craft to hide your scales, to incinerate them into nothingness so you do not have to hide them beneath metal plates. So you could be human.
It felt like blasphemy, and you found you could not dare to part with them even if you believe them to be a curse. You reversed what you did, let your flames flare for just moments, and you went back to hiding your wildfire and writing about what little you remember. You cannot lose anything that reminds you of home. You cling to your Country and weep for what was lost. No one will believe the things you say, so you weep, and grieve, because there is no one else who will grieve with you but the Universe.
It is ironic, you think, that the Weeping One did not cry even as you begged and cried and sobbed and wept. They did not shed a tear when you shattered their ribcage, only growled and clawed and bit and cursed. It felt like an insult that etched itself into your voice, one that made the rage in you flare with wildfire. You had let go, then, let go of your humanity and let wrath consume you in a unending blaze.
(Tears of the Weeping One are holy, aren’t they? They are blessings from it, meant to soothe you and heal the burns on your soul. Something tells you so, but the memory turns to smoke before you can dig your claws into it.)
You weep for what you broke. You weep for a thing that wanders like you, that growls like you, that hunts and claws and bites so much more freely than you. They hid their inhuman nature like you, but they were still more free. They did not cage themselves underneath metal. They let themselves stalk through streets and growl at others before turning away and continuing their hunt. You wonder, still, what they were hunting for. Maybe they were hunting for a way to go home like you, or maybe the Universe was leading them as well. Leading them to meet you on an autumn day for their blood to be spilled and sunfire to consume you.
Did they remember the names of the ever-burning stars, you wonder? Could they name the constellations you have forgotten?
Could you have asked?
Could you have gone home, if you had set aside your wrath?
Could you have gone home, if you had listened to his words, had acknowledged that the thing under their skin was weak, that his fires were stuttering in the winter chill? That it needed to be protected, so he can burn like you do, and use that fire to bring back your home? That he could not fix it, simply because frost followed in his footsteps?
Were you meant to protect him? Were you meant to help, with the claws you hide underneath metal gauntlets? With hands you used to protect Vaugarde’s people, that are now stained with a shade that does not exist? Were you meant to work together, like you had begged him to, were you meant to go home together?
…
No. No. You are not wrong, you know this. You cannot be wrong.
Blood demands blood, a torn eye for a torn wing. This is a rule you know well, this is a rule you abide even in the face of Vaugardians who advocate to forgive and forget. It is a message charred into your bones, to bite when you are nipped, to claw when you are scratched, to roar when something is howling, to become the predator so you are never prey.
That monster took away your people, on accident. Your Country had done nothing to deserve the Weeping One’s wrath, it had done nothing to deserve it’s destruction, it’s erasure. Sorry is not enough. Sorry will never be enough, and the Weeping One could not bring it back. Could not repay the debt they owed.
You avenged your people. You took something in payment for what was lost. It was your duty, it was what the Universe led you there to do. You keep what you stole from him close to you, it hangs on a cage off your hip like a lantern with no flame.
It is a beating, bleeding, pleading, freezing thing that drips blood that burns you with its chill. You keep it covered in fabric and metal as to not drip, to not let the frost eat away at you, to not show others what you have done.
Something feels wrong about the fact you are hiding what you have done. Vengeance is something to celebrate, a debt paid in blood is not meant to be something you are ashamed of, yet you are. You know you have to hide the frigid star because Vaugarde would not accept it, they do not fully accept your smouldering culture even if you pretend otherwise that they do. They would be horrified at what you have done, you know this. You could try to make them understand, make them understand what you did was right, but shame licks at your throat and prevents you from speaking. You do not know why you are ashamed, what you did was right. It had to have been right. It was the Universe’s will.
And yet.
And yet it feels like you have lost more than ever. It feels like you lost something that day, it feels like a hole has been seared into where your vocal chords should lay and yet you can still speak, still command, still lead, still protect.
You lost so much more than you took, and you have left something important at that crumbling shrine.
But it was necessary. It had to have been necessary. It was what the Universe wanted. It was what the Universe wanted. It was what the Universe wanted. It was what the Universe wanted.
(You cannot be wrong.)
(That would mean you defied the will of the Universe, that you tarnished it’s name.)
(You cannot be wrong.)
. . .
You spend weeks Wishing, after you killed the only other thing left of your Country.
You wished to go home.
(You begged him to say it’s name.)
You wished to go home.
(The rage that was flared that day has not calmed, no amount of your own tears can put out the flames. Hate is a part of you, you cannot let it go as much as you cannot let go of the sunfire in your veins. The debt will never be paid.)
You wished to go home.
(Late at night, you hold up the Weeping One’s heart to the Universe. You beg it to help you. You avenged your people, why won’t it help you bring them back? What did you do wrong?)
You wished to go home.
(You still hear their words, hear the last thing he said to you that day before darkless consumed your vision and you shattered him further in that once-holy place.)
(“You will never go home. You will be stuck here, until the end of time, and you will never go home. Never. Never-”)
(You should have set fire to his body, and maybe then, he would have understood you and accepted the price.)
The Universe will not abide your Wish. You could Wish for eternity to go home, but it will not hear you.
You know this, now.
The Weeping One was right.
You will never go home.
You know this. You tell yourself you accept this, that what happened to your Country cannot be reversed by yours and the Weeping One’s power.
You lie to yourself, and you fear.
The Weeping One turned on your Country. It disappeared with without a trace. You cannot go home.
What if the same happens to Vaugarde? What if turns to smoke, what if the memory of it disappears on the wind, what if it’s memory becomes coated in frost and ice so thick it becomes a blanket expanse of darkless?
What if Vaugarde’s God turns on the people who love you?
You have a debt to pay of your own, don’t you?
Vaugarde deserves to be protected from the winter’s grasp. You know this. You cannot allow Vaugarde the same fate, you cannot allow it’s people to be scattered, to be lost. Cannot allow them to become wayward travelers that roam and wander and drift and haunt this world like you and the Weeping One once did, never to meet another of your own kind.
So you turned to your studies, you turned to the sparkling stars and the frost moon and the scorching sun, and you come to the realization what it is the Universe wanted. It grieves like you do for your home, and it wants you to protect Vaugarde because it cannot bring back your home.
You stand on one of the few mountains Vaugarde has, in a mountain range overlooking a city that you have lived in for the past several months as you Wished and Wished and Wished and Wished to go home. Snow crunches underneath your feet and your breath turns to mist in the air, but you do not mind. At the base of the mountain the snow melts underneath the light, flowers begin to sprout in the new dawn, animals wake from their hibernation, and spring sings in your ears even as winter still covers the mountain tops.
It will be happening soon. The moon will blot out the sun, and the Universe will hear your Wish.
You watch as darkness begins to overtake the country you love so dearly and drains away the warmth, the warmth you swear to protect at all costs. You watch shadows rise in pillars from the ground like an army at your command. You watch a silver ring form around the sun that keeps you warm, keeps you safe, guides the people of the day, and chases away the stars that you love so dearly, the stars that you belong to like you belong to the sun. You belong to the Universe.
The day turns to night, and just for a moment, you are Home.
Your hand goes to your hip where a cage lays, where you keep the beating-bleeding-pleading-freezing thing and hold it up to the endless sky.
You know, in this moment, that the Universe has cast its eyes and ears on you.
You open the cage, and unwrap the frozen, sluggish thing from the stiff fabric. The cold creeps into the metal you forged with fire, it coats you in frost, and the fire in your throat stutters and flares in the face of what you must do.
You raise the divine heart to your lips, and you drink.
Thick blood from a god that destroyed your home stains your mouth, coating your tongue and your teeth, and runs down your throat like a river’s water breaking through ice in spring. You feel it’s drops plummet to the fire that keeps you alive and keeps you Wishing. The sunfire in your soul flickers before it erupts into a cacophony of light and you know, you know, you know, you know that the Universe has no choice but to heed your Wish.
It is your will to keep Vaugarde safe, and it is the Universe’s will.
You repeat your Wish four times, because that is what is right.
Four, like the four points of a star.
Four, like the four directions.
Four, like the four horns on your head.
Four, even as sunfire and starfrost burn your throat in a battle for dominance, even as ichor drips from your lips.
The Universe must Hear you.
And when the moon does not move from the sun and stars paint the sky and your own blood is mixing with the ichor in your mouth, you know you have won.
Your Gift spreads from your feet, a lightless shade dark as your armor begins to coat the mountains and the winter winds still. The birds go silent, a fox and a mouse crystallize in the midst in their chase, and the flowers halt their swaying in the wind. You are left in perfect silence, in a world shielded from harm.
The cold from the frozen heart still coats your hands in frost but you feel warm down to your marrow.
You watch your Gift cascade down the mountain and wraps around the city like a mother wraps her shivering child in a warm blanket by the fireplace.
You understand the Universe’s choice, and you smile with blood stained lips and a ravaged throat. This is the price you pay, and you will pay it again and again. You will protect your sleeping people. It will be a wonderful thing, to fall asleep in moments of happiness. To rest with laughter etched into their faces, forever reading a book by the hearth, to be a parent watching children play through the streets, or to sleep while singing and dancing.
This is where the Universe has led you. You can only follow.
You wrap the Weeping One’s heart in cold fabric, and put it back in its cage. You have much work to do, you must spread your gift to the rest of the country. You must keep Vaugarde safe and perfect forever.
(“You will be stuck here, until the end of time.”)
Pain pierces your skull and into your filed-down horns. It carves a path in the cracks of your mind where you memories fall through and turn to smoke.
(“And you will never go home.”)
Your horns begin to grow, they warp and change and the feeling burns hotter than any wildfire, any star, any sun, than your very soul. It twists around your head and form into points that reach for the sun and the stars. The Universe’s will sears your metal armor into your skin and metal melts into the cracks between your scales.
The Universe’s casts you into it’s divine forge and tears well up into your eyes and you wail as the Universe takes pieces of you and molds you into it’s perfect protector.
(“Never.”)
When the fire subsides and the only burning is the flames in your throat, you reach for your head with a trembling, metal hand.
The Universe itself has crowned you King, and you laugh. You laugh and you weep and your tears fall to the ground in waves and into the charred land. You grieve for what you shattered and left behind in a crumbling shrine, and you celebrate the eternal future to come.
This is where you are meant to be, here in Vaugarde, protecting it from gods who would defile it’s memory.
(“Never.”)
You will follow the Universe’s will for Eternity.