Divine Bond

What a glorious day.

What radiant incandescence.

The sun, the Father, shines brilliantly overhead at the highest of noons. Its corona bathing all in its warmth despite the latent chill of the leaving winter that cakes the ground.

Grass softly crinkles and snaps from the frozen dew under a silver taloned foot, a sparkling sith-makar stepping out into the open field. Armor just as silvery as he, the amulet dedicated to the very celestial body above clinking softly against it along with the red scale tacked on.

The sickness from the ghouls had abated and he had recovered. Confidence soaring high and beyond.

The silverscale tilts his head back and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath as he bathes in the light. Arms open, as if he was going to embrace it all.

Know what? It’s been a while. Out in the open ground, with the Dragonfather watching down from above? That connection was certainly there.

Skielstregar removes his amulet and wraps the silver chain around his hands, clasping the symbol between his large palms as he goes to his knees and sits on his feet.

“Dragonfather,” he begins, closing his eyes. “This one still laments that they be guided by your hand, wield your strength, enforce your will. Despite this, they continue to walk in your light as best they can.”

Dead silver eyes slowly slide open, set upon the bright blue sky above. “This one does not know the extent of their capabilities, they wish their power stemmed from you, rather than this… method. But if the Shamans say that such necrosis has a shade of your will to it, then they will make it as best as they can, no matter how hard it is.”

A gentle wind rolls across the plains.

His gaze slowly falls to his hands, the wrought iron holy symbol cradled carefully in the makari’s grasp. “And it has been hard.”

Fingers curl around it. “But the People have made this one strong.”

Warm memories stifle the constant chill that surrounds his barely beating heart. He finds himself smiling. His head tilts skyward once more.

“Tell this one, Father. Were the circumstances have changed, would this one be under your light? Your sharp talons and protective scales?” he asks rhetorically. “This one imagines weapons shed of brilliant light, a steed to ride upon into trouble quickly. This one wonders, would it be a swiftclaw? Or a mare. Whatever it ended up being, they would treat them just as kindly, as they would appreciate your faith in this one just as this one has faith in you.”

Then a tinge of sorrow pulls his expression down. “... but perhaps what has happened to this one, this… affliction, is what they were meant to be. Perhaps you trust this one to carry this burden, to wield it well to your will rather than it falling prey to someone more nefarious.”

That seemed to bring him some comfort, talking himself into it. He chuffs a gout of frozen air.

Another gentle breeze carries it away.

An amused chuckle leaves him in a rumble. “Tell this one. Mare? Or swiftclaw?”

And yet another chilly wind wafts. This one freezing to the bone. Skielstregar’s reverie to the sky is reeled in as he looks to himself at that familiar, fleeting feeling. Like the last eddies of a nearly empty breath, coasting on a death rattle.

Between the scales on his hands, a familiar black ichor, wafting sickening miasma into the air seeps free, staining his palms, the amulet, the red scale.

He draws breath, but finds it lacking the sharpness of clarity it brings.

It drips down from his grasp, splashing and joining the tributaries that run down his legs as it seeps into the grassy ground. The earth drains of color, the grass withering and dying.

This wasn’t uncommon, and the half-undead man steadies himself and focuses on what matters to him to help stem this necromantic leak. But unlike many times before where that leash pull would reign it in, it does not listen.

“Okay, you can quit this,” he quietly hisses as more of the ichor pools around him, snuffing life of insects around him. It rolls down the slight incline of the open field, him leaning forward as the strain of something coming starts to pull him down.

He grimaces, keeping his head held high as best he can, trying to not let the cool wind yank the life force it wants.

The sun dims as clouds lazily roll in front of the Father.

A rush of frigid cold crashes against his bones, throwing the massive makari to his hands and knees, the amulet clinking softly into the growing pool of miasma. More ink pours from betwixt his scales, eyes wide as he trembles to stay upright. “What… what are you… what is this…?”

He claws at the dying earth in front of him, trying to pull it back. “No! You are this one’s to command! You do not control this one!” he snarls, maw pulled back as he attempts, and fails, to draw back the icky ichor. “Return!”

The pool grows wider.

“Cease this!”

The clouds darken.

“Do not-!”

Another gust, a building sensation, his eyes glimmer crimson. He suddenly coughs and splatters a large amount of the black death out. Staining his jaw and rippling across the swath of built miasma.

Rippling?

The amulet in the center, bathed in the ink, slowly shifts and clatters as something begins to coalesce and rise from the pool.

An elongated head emerges. Two solid crimson eyes glowing on either side of its skull, beset by smoky black fur. Two hooves emerge to stamp against the ground, pulling itself free from its spawning ichor as another set shoves itself solidly into reality.

Large, onyx flanks twitch as it settles in, the pool of ichor fading into the ground, leaving nothing but dead grass and a field of cricket caracasses behind.

The beast whinnies. And lowers its head towards the wide eyed makari who remain knelt upon the ground. Pupils tight slits, trembling in their sockets. Jaw loose. Aghast.

The Dragonfather amulet dangles freely off its nose. And falls into his empty lap as the last wafts of ink scatter on the nonexistent chilly breeze.

A mare.

-End Scene-