WARNING - Major spoilers for Book 2! You have been warned! Also some content in this post may be too extreme for those that are 13 years old and under. Proceed at your own risk!
Now then, where was I....oh yeah, spoilers. Seriously, this article will contain a shit ton of spoilers for Book 2 of The Star Chronicles because this is when her beloved Shadow is created. Yeah you read that right. I said created, not born, but before I get started on another word vomiting spree...Introduction Time!
First Captain and Leader of the Blood Guard, The Hollow of Destruction, The Fallen One. He is Shadow of The Deathly Hollows and he is her darkness.
Hmm...that picture was larger than expected but meh, moving on. One of the main reasons for not doing the more in depth profiles is because both The Captains and The Deathly Hollows all play extremely important roles in the Star Child's life. Shadow may be the First Captain, but unlike the other three captains...he was never an actual captain. Were that not enough, he isn't even the first member of the Guard that Artz meets in the past...though to be fair, the first one insisted that their arrival/joining of the Guard occurred after the creation of The Realm...more on that later.
Shadow was given his name and purpose after the initial creation of The Realm, also you are probably wondering why he is known as The Fallen One. To do that, I just realized this too, that I need to stop on this article, save it as a draft, and start a completely different article altogether. I'll be right back...*several days and three articles later*...I'm back...finally! Sorry, there was a lot of stuff that needed to sorta be explained or summarized before I could continue on with his profile.
Now technically his profile is starting off before he is actually Shadow and takes place like a few months or maybe a few years after the events depicted in the article Descent Into Darkness. The reason for the vagueness is because I haven't fully written out all the stuff that actually happens to her before she meets the one meant to be Shadow. Much of that time is basically a showcase of all the different kinds of evil humans are capable of inflicting on another, specifically her. She's not able to defend herself from any of it due to her emotional and mental states. When experiencing great trauma or very deep negative emotions, her powers pretty much don't work.
Note: This is before she fully comprehends what she is actually capable of.
Her powers are at their highest and most powerful when she is feeling intense positive emotions; happiness, joy, excitement, glee, jubilation, friendship, kindness, hope, and most definitely love. At this time, her own personal darkness, which everyone does have their own, has yet to be awakened. It slumbers deep within and is almost impossible to reach. Thus the reason why she had to rise so high, only to fall so much further. Everything she worked so hard to build, to accomplish, to foster...it becomes twisted, warped, distorted...becoming everything that she tried so hard to prevent.
She shines bright with the light of her very own star and then the star falls, plunging into the darkness until it at lasts impacts the ground, destruction in its wake. This is what happened to her. She befriended an alien species and built them a home. They decided to share that home with the humans she selected and brought to the city. She worked tirelessly to create a peaceful harmony, putting all that she was into its creation.
Then she made a mistake, many in fact. She tried to carry the burden alone, an ever increasing burden which required more and more of her time until one day, she was a stranger to them. In trying to do everything herself, she neglected the one responsibility that she was quite good at...open communication. She failed to keep regular social interactions with the people until she became as alien to them as the Draconians were. She paid the ultimate price; her mind, body, heart, and spirit...nothing was left untouched...except her soul. Even after the people she once cared for had shut her out, warped her into a monster in their eyes, and said such terrible things...she still had hope.
Things went from bad to just plain evil; stripping her of all she had, chaining her in a cell without food or water or even a blanket, dragging her through the streets with her naked body for all to see, tying her to a post in one of the main plazas, beating and whipping her and no one stopping it...her soul did not yield. Then came the actions that she never believed would ever happen, let alone to her of all people. They locked her head and hands in the stocks then spread her legs apart, chaining them down so that she couldn't close them.
The one known as the Star Child was not only left on display, but the current government issued a formal edict. For every ten years she had spent among them, she was to spend a year in the stocks...she had lived in the city for over three hundred and fifty years, so she was to remain in the stocks for forty years including the four years accumulated from her time in the stocks. The edict also stated that every law abiding citizen was to punish her however they saw fit for her blatant disregard of the law while she was in the stocks and after she was released.
Her current positioning and state of undress made it absolutely clear how the law abiding citizens were to punish her and punish her they did. Forty years of being used by every man, woman, child, and beast...she was released from her confinement, but none of her possessions were returned and she was left to wander the streets without food, water, or clothing. It didn't stop her from tracking down the one thing she could and would always find...her Tardis pendant.
Luck was on her side when she raided the repository. All of her things were in there along with several very useful items. When she left this time, she was not caught, but she couldn't leave the city...not without her family. Not a single Draconian had appeared during her confinement and she fully intended to find out why. Unfortunately, every time she was spotted by a law abiding citizen, she was brutally beaten and raped. Almost all of her possessions were ripped to tatters or broken beyond repair. She honestly had no idea how many years had passed since her release, she was always in a constant state of pain and exhaustion, so much so that she could barely see, let alone think.
As always, her body gave out before her mind did and she collapsed, simply unable to get up and fate was not kind. A group of citizens had heard the sound and came to investigate, finding her on the ground with the barest of scraps covering her body. Once again, she was at their mercy, being used over and over again. Once done, one of them attempted to take her pendant, but had his arm bitten into by a little boy.
The man tried to shake loose, but the boy was clever. He used his opponent's strength and size to his advantage, easily out maneuvering him and sent him crashing into his companions. The men approached the boy that was so blatantly defending the immortal whore of Atlantis, but they were in for a surprise when a woman with brunette hair and blazing brown eyes appeared with some type of firearm in each hand, daring them to take one more step towards her son and his girl.
The people in that tier of the city knew who the woman was, more specifically her reputation for removing a male's ability to reproduce in a violent and permanent manner. She was the youngest daughter of the current leader, many believed him to be the father of her son but this had never been confirmed. She would not hesitate to butcher every single one of them if they tried to harm her son and since the boy was laying claim the city whore, she would defend her too. The men wisely backed off and hastily left the area.
The boy's mother holstered her weapons back under her dress then turned to face her son, finding him using his special gift to ease the woman's pain. Her son's special ability was the reason why she had moved from the government sector to the Draconian sector. No one ever moved in there, most refused to even traverse it and going the long way round just to avoid it. This sector was considered cursed or tainted by the remnants of its former inhabitants.
A few were brave enough to venture forth, mainly thugs, addicts and rape gangs, but that was only on the outskirts of the sector. She and her son lived at the very heart of it. Why because while looking for new accommodations, her son walked straight into the Draconian sector and kept going until they reached the place that was once the home of the mythical Star Child, a celestial goddess banished from the heavens by her kin for her wickedness, cruelty, and the enslavement of mortals, binding them to herself by forcibly breaking their spirits during sexual intercourse.
The brunette had always scoffed at the legends as a child. She was quite the little trouble maker; willful, disobedient, outspoken, and had a mouth that wouldn't stop. Which had gotten her into trouble because she had wandered too far from home and was found by a rape gang. They almost caught her too, but a woman with eyes of the bluest blue and hair the color of a majestic crimson got in their way. It allowed the girl to get away, but the woman that had so valiantly came to her rescue had not been so lucky.
She never saw her after that day, but she did hear whispers of a demoness that wandered the city and the only way to keep it from harming them was forcing it into submission, injecting it with their purity as often as possible. Purity...after what nearly happened to her...a child...she took a good, long look at everything around her and she was horrified. Spouses being paid so that their significant other was at another's mercy, teenagers and young adults having intimate relations with their siblings and even with their parents, demented festivals and vile rituals being conducted in public for entertainment...how...why didn't she notice any of this before?
Had she truly been so blind or too sheltered by her family's affluence? Or rather she didn't want to see and simply ignored it or worse, was she simply not old enough to be initiated into such vile and corrupted events? Would they expect her to request admittance to such things, to allow herself to be violated by her own kin or would they hire a teacher to instruct her privately and behind closed doors? No! This was wrong! All of it, everything around her was completely and sinfully wrong! A terrible thought sliced through her...what if she refused? What would they do to her...what was the cost?
As she grew older, she became more and more afraid and one day, she met a cloaked figure as she was leaving yet another social gathering...she was well aware that her parents were looking for a suitable husband for their headstrong daughter. This figure turned out to be a young man with kind blue eyes and long vibrant blonde hair.
His name was Allen Schezar and he didn't know where he was, saying that he had never seen any city in any kingdom with this kind of design, an architect's dream. She wasn't quite sure what to make of him. For all she knew, this was some devious farce being forced upon her by her parents and because she had been living a life with an ever-increasing amount of fear for every day gone, let's just say that she wasn't exactly polite. Instead of being offended or finding her vulgar behavior as an invitation to conquer her, his facial features softened and he actually apologized for being too forward with a lady of her status, kneeling on one knee and bowing his head in respect.
No one, absolutely no one had ever reacted like this and quite frankly, she was at a loss for words, but when she heard voices in the distance, she bent down and grabbed his hand. He looked up in surprise before she yanked him to his feet, making him run with her and through several streets and at last into one of the hidden alcoves where they wouldn't be disturbed. She thoroughly questioned him about himself, his travels, and then all doubts were gone when he had mentioned crossing paths with a woman matching the one that had saved her as a child...the Star Child.
She begged him to tell her more about the Star Child and he asked why it was so important to her. Out came the history of Atlantis and her male companion was staring at her in shock and horror and not for the reason she thought it was. He backed away until his back hit the wall...fear...he was afraid but why? A question she voiced and his answer shocked the living daylights out of her. Why...because the city known as Atlantis was considered a myth, a dark and gruesome legend about the evils of humanity, a warning to future generations.
Allen was from the distant future, a time when the Star Child roamed freely and infecting others, not with lust or cruelty, but with smiles and kindness. She made friends at the drop of a hat...any hat...actually a hat didn't even need to drop at all because she honestly and genuinely cared for every person that crossed her path and even those she had not yet met or would ever meet at all. The woman was in tears, the memory of that horrible day from her childhood flooding her mind in vivid detail and constantly looping.
Allen, ever the gentleman, brought her into his arms to offer her support the only way he knew how. She spent the next hour crying and choking out the events taking place within her memory. She was taken off guard when she found herself on her back and with him hovering just a few inches from her face. When he spoke, he revealed that the Star Child had told him that his destiny was entwined with a specific individual, the last remaining light on a moonless night, a woman with a courage greater than the mightiest hero, a wisdom greater than any scholar, a spirit of unyielding fortitude, a heart that held both hope and fear, a soul surrounded by darkness yet it's purity untainted.
When he looked into her eyes, her heart quickened and thudded hard in her chest. The way he looked at her like she was the most important thing in the whole of creation to him, it turned her body into a chemical battleground. He believed that she was the one the Star Child spoke of, but she disagreed because she was nothing more than a scared little girl destined to be crushed by the sin of Atlantis...he kissed her and in that moment, it didn't matter what she thought of herself. What mattered was the man out of time wanting so desperately for her to accept his heart and all the love he had been waiting to give for such a long time.
She went against everything inside her frightened heart and allowed this remarkable man to make love to her for the rest of the night. He worshipped her, doing everything within his power to ease the pain of losing her virginity and making certain that the experience was pleasurable for both of them.
In the coming days, she managed to create an identity for him, one of great stature...a knight of Atlantis. About a year later, he came to her father's home and requested permission to court her, but her father refused saying that if he truly wanted her then he would marry her immediately...Allen did not argue and accepted. A week later, they were married and life was good, for a time she knew what it meant to be truly happy...not to mention that her husband made love to her whenever she pleased but she also bent to his wishes from time to time.
Her beloved knight made her realize what the Star Child truly wanted when she created Atlantis, a sanctuary for all. Every time her husband told her stories about The Realm, she always started crying, because that was what Atlantis was supposed to be. Allen would always hum or sing one of the many songs that the Star Child loved so much and it always calmed her heart and quieted the screaming within her soul.
She asked her knight why she was so different from everyone else. Why did she see what others refused to see or acknowledge? Why was she the only one able to comprehend the true purpose of Atlantis and just how vile and ugly it had become?
The man out of time would always smile when she asked questions like that and said that to create an unyielding light, it must be within the deepest darkness. It was because she chose to see what was happening and understanding what it truly meant. She was not born different, she chose to be different because humans were capable of the greatest acts of evil but also capable of the greatest acts of good and kindness...free will. Both darkness and light existed within for one cannot have one without the other and it was their choices that determined their moral alignment. She chose to be good, they chose to be evil.
Everything he said sounded so simple...common sense...yet so easily ignored by the people in the city. She pleaded with him to tell her the stories of the Star Child over and over again, committing each one to memory, engraving them into her very soul. Allen would often tease her about how the city's founder had become her personal hero, but she never denied it because it was true. The Star Child had saved her as a child and ever since that day, that one single encounter, it changed everything for her. She was determined to live life to the fullest, to enjoy each day with her beloved knight, and prayed that she would be allowed to meet the Star Child one more time, to show her that a single light still burned brightly in the darkness of Atlantis.
As all things in nature and in life came to an end, her joy came to an abrupt halt when the love of her life was brutally murdered for trying to protect someone. She was not devastated, she was pissed. Not only was her husband murdered, forcing her back into the repressive home of her childhood, but her father had sold her mother to his own damn son, both of her elder sisters were his lovers, and he expected her to be his lover as well because he had so graciously accepted his disgraced daughter back into his home after her traitorous husband had dared to protect the immortal whore.
She stood tall and proud, refusing to submit to his carnal desires. He went to backhand her but she caught it easily, saying that she wasn't a terrified child anymore and that her husband had trained her to protect herself should he ever fall in battle. She gave him a sweet smile and that's when he felt a weapon being pushed quite painfully into his groin. She warned him that should he wish to ever bed a woman ever again that he should stick to his affairs and she to hers, and just so he knew that she was serious, she shot off his nuts, ensuring that he would never be able to reproduce ever again.
She simply returned the weapon to its holster and summoned the maids to clean up his mess and then ordered them to take the rest of the month off with triple the wages of an entire year as an incentive. Her notoriety grew when men tried to take her against her will and she kept either shooting them or castrating them, but never killing them. There wasn't much they could do about her because she was still acting within the boundaries of the law.
She did, however, notice when her stomach became firmer and a little rounder...then came the nausea and she knew...she didn't even need a medical team to tell her...she was pregnant...with the child of her late husband. No man had been able to bed her since Allen's death. The last man that had laid claim to this body was her beloved knight, though the medical team still insisted on getting genetic verification and sure enough, the fetus growing inside her belonged to the love of her life.
She devoted her life to that child; teaching him the values of his mother, the code of honor of his father, to protect the weak and defend the faith, to live each day to its fullest and enjoy the small things in life, to look beyond the darkness and see the Star that still shined, and most importantly, she taught him to be kind, to listen, to care, to love completely and to remember the true story and purpose of Atlantis and the woman that created it, the Star Child.
And here they were, aiding and defending the very woman that had irrevocably altered the course of Allen Schezar and Clara Oswin. Helping and healing the woman that their son had been waiting to meet his entire life. When she awoke in her old home, she initially panicked, not knowing how she got there, but instantly calmed when she spotted Clara and the brunette was genuinely surprised because the legendary Star Child called her by name. She almost started crying, but chose instead to act as normally as possible.
It kind of backfired because the mouth that never stopped back in her youth was going full blast and she made her personal hero cry...and then it was her turn to cry because her hero's name, well her first name, was the exact same as her son's, Artz. Her beloved knight had stated that boy or girl, he wanted their firstborn to be named Artz and even though he died never knowing that she was pregnant, she honored his wish and now she knew why he had been so adamant...more like belligerent and immovable. He wanted their child to have a name that held meaning for both of them though she hadn't known at the time and he wanted their child to aspire to be like their namesake...that wonderful husband of hers...she missed him, but she knew that he would be so happy and proud of his wife and his son.
They saved the woman that he had fought so hard to protect, defending her with all he had, and even brought her back to the home she thought that she would never step foot in again. She was brought back to reality when her son barreled in covered in a thick layer of dust and holding something behind his back. The redhead was staring at him, a look of intense confusion on her face...like something didn't quite add up in her head. She shook her head slightly and waved him over.
The boy beamed at the Star Child, his entire body glowing with an electric blue light and Clara saw recognition pass through those incredibly expressive sapphire eyes. She blinked a few times when the woman smiled brightly at the boy. He presented the object that he had been holding behind his back...a rather plain looking silver flute. The look on the ginger's face, like he had just presented her with the greatest and most precious gift imaginable, as she took the flute and clutched it to her chest, tears of joy pouring from her eyes.
It made the brunette cry, especially when the woman managed to choke out a thank you before the boy dashed away to get cleaned up from his little excursion into the attic where most of the ginger's belongings were stored. Clara asked her why a simple and ordinary instrument would make her so unbelievably happy.
'It's the people and the reason why they gave it to me...that is why I'm happy. This bland little thing belonged to my Captain who gave it to his godson who gave it to me. The reason was simple...to always be with me, to be the song in my heart.
Seeing it and holding it again, it made me realize that there is so much still waiting for me, so many waiting to meet me, to know me, to love me...my Blood Guard, one great big family of goofballs, idiots, pranksters, geniuses, and the craziest people you'll probably ever meet.
They're waiting for me, but I must walk the slower path, live through countless eras to meet each one of them, but before all that, I have to find my family or at the very least, what became of them. They always did love it when I played the flute. May I play for you, Clara Oswin?'
The brunette woman, trying to hold back another wave of tears, nodded her head, her voice failing her at the moment and then her hero played and the tears came anyway.
The melody was beautiful yet full of sorrow, a life never lived yet felt within for eternity. As the Star Child played, blue sparkles of light fell from above like snow and she understood why she was called a goddess, but as she continued to play, figures began to appear as if partially formed from the Star dust and Clara soon realized that the figures were of the people that Artz loved but they had yet to meet her, echoes of the very song she was playing. There were so many appearing and disappearing, several of them bore a rather striking resemblance to herself... spatial temporal genetic multiplicity in which the same genetic pattern repeated itself in later generations.
The longer she played, the more assured the brunette became because she had been right to reject the city's corrupted history, right to have faith in a woman she had seen only once...but little did she know that the falling star dust wasn't just occurring in their home, but across the entirety of the city and beyond, encompassing the earth. Those that lived within the city were filled with a terrible dread, the purity of the falling dust stinging them on contact, but those that that lived throughout the rest of the world, the falling blue sparkles of light eased their minds, quieted their restless spirits, and rekindled the flame of hope that had been extinguished for so long.
This phenomenon was considered to be the first sign of what was to come...the fate of Atlantis was sealed. The Star Child spent a great deal of time recovering physically, but her heart was mended swiftly by the boy that shared her name. She knew that he was much smarter and more perceptive than he let on, choosing to act like a child his age should act just so that it would make her smile. He showed her his special gift, the ability to reverse time in a localized field. It did have certain limitations in regards to saving the recently perished, but he rarely used it.
When she asked him why, he tried using it on other people and even animals but it kept getting warped, causing time to accelerate rather than reverse. He came to the conclusion that his gift was meant for someone else and that he was merely a temporary vessel, but he was fine with that. In fact, he believed that this power was actually meant for her so that she could protect the people she cared about, saving them from death's embrace, but he didn't know how to give it to her and she didn't either. The Star Child she may be, but she was neither omnipotent or all-knowing.
Years passed and the light that had almost been extinguished was once again a roaring inferno...and all because a little boy and his head strong mother decided that she was more important to them than everything else in creation. She found hope and love and family, yet something was wrong...very wrong. How did she know something was terribly wrong because she had been living with them for seventeen years and neither of them had aged a single day.
She pointed this out to them and the brunette was confused because her pregnancy had been the standard nine months and her son had aged normally...the woman remembered that a few years before they met her, the water had tasted weird and shimmered with an odd light. Eventually the shimmering stopped but the water and subsequently the grown foods still tasted weird.
Clara left after that and returned with some freshly grown fruits and vegetables and a several containers of water from the city's main water supply, the Draconian sector was a completely different system and not connected to the main supply. Thus the reason for going to the market and purchasing a little of everything. The ginger knew that something was definitely wrong with the hydroponics division from the coloring alone. The colors were much too vibrant and when they turned off the lights, there was a barely discernable glow being emitted by all the grown foods.
The water, however, filled her heart and mind with dread. In the light, it looked completely normal. In the dark, it had a slight glow like the food, but the moment it entered her mouth, her entire body seized up with an astronomical amount of agony, rage, hatred and had her vomiting for the better part of the afternoon and well into the night. When she awoke the next day, she was delirious, running a very high fever, and not even the boy's ability to reverse time could help her.
Clara didn't know what to do and was panicking, her son telling her to calm down, that the redhead was going to be fine. She asked him how he knew.
'Papa told me.'
Those three words cut through her panic like a hot knife through butter. She couldn't even form the words to ask for clarification, but she didn't have to because her son already had an answer for her.
'Papa tried to help her, but she couldn't save his life. So she saved him instead, Papa's soul is inside her and many others too. She folded them into her dreams and kept them safe, so that one day, they could be reborn into the future generations. Some will remember, most of them won't, and some will simply become who they once were, not changing at all.
She doesn't know how many she has saved already...she doesn't know that she saved them at all, but Papa said that she would find out one day, when a star that once shined so bright will shine once more, from the endless night, the brightest star that could never be born...the impossible child with a power like mine...the first born of the Star Child.'
She asked which soul would one day be within that child and her son simply smiled, reminding her so much of his father in that moment, and said 'Spoilers!' She scowled at the giggling boy before a smile of her own appeared on her face, watching her son attending to her personal hero. This was the final moment of happiness for the woman known as Clara Oswin. Having heard a disturbance from the ground floor, she told her son to stay with the weakened ginger and went to investigate.
The boy heard his mother screaming in pain and he was afraid...for the Star Child because she was getting up, forcing her exhausted body to move, staggering down the stairs and just as she reached the bottom of the steps, she splattered with blood. Clara was only a few feet in front of her but there was a gaping hole in her chest...her heart had been ripped completely out of her chest...the one responsible wearing an armored gauntlet and holding the woman's heart in his hand.
The intruder crushed the organ, smirking evilly at the Star Child before kicking the brunette's body aside, shoving the ginger against the wall, and forced the woman to swallow the remains of Clara's heart down her throat.
The one known as the Star Child was overcome by a fury and hatred that were not her own...Draconian, the fury and hatred of hundreds of Draconians flooded her system and was granted a renewed force and power. She did not hesitate as she quite literally ripped the intruders apart...members of the city guard sent to retrieve her. She was completely overwhelmed by the intensity of such powerful negative emotions...even though they were dead, she still tore into their bodies with her bare hands.
Her body stilled when the sound of a flute reached her ears, sinking into her mind and disrupting the all-consuming rage and hatred. The song struck her at her core, her heart and soul rebelling against the darker emotions forced upon her by the lingering essence of her beloved Draconians. Such a simple melody, so brief but so incredibly powerful...To Neverland.
When the Star Child realized what she had done, she screamed, sinking to the floor. She stared at her hands and body, tears streaming down her blood stained face. The woman that had promised never to kill, that believed that no matter what form it took, life was too precious a gift to waste...had just brutally murdered over a dozen men, even ripping into their corpses. The boy that had so valiantly brought her back to her senses could only watch as the woman he loved with his entire being shattered right before his very eyes.
He looked away and to the body of the woman that had given birth to him. He wanted to cry, but couldn't because he knew that if she didn't die then someone else, someone so incredibly important, would never be born...the brightest star that held sway over time within her own body...his gift was meant for both of them, the Star Child and her first born child, Emma. His mother's soul would reborn as the daughter of the very woman that had once saved her life, repaying that debt an infinite number of times and in an infinite number of ways.
(Note: Play song through the rest of the article.)
There was no time to truly let her mourn. He touched her face and her attention snapped to him immediately. He told her that they needed to leave, to find the Draconians, and to get as far away from this awful place as they could. He could see just how hard she was fighting just to keep her deeper emotions barely contained, but he knew what happened to the alien race she had befriended so long ago. He had worked it out by the time he was able to crawl across the floor as an infant. The truth was going to destroy her and he had to let it happen...otherwise he would never be born.
Not long after they left the house, it began to rain, something that he was grateful for because it washed away most of the blood off of the heartbroken avatar. Her clothes were still stained with it but her mental state improved when she no longer felt the sticky substance on her skin or in her hair. They made their way through the residential section and headed towards the tier of the city dedicated completely to the many different forms of science.
Some people tried to stop them but the rain sliced through them. He didn't understand how it was happening because neither he nor the avatar were currently able to wield water in such a manner. That's when he saw him, he was a good distance away and partially obscured but he definitely recognized the man. Black shirt, red vest, dark pants and boots, wearing a long coat and a sword at his side, but it was his eyes that called to the young boy...mirrored obsidian.
At her darkest hour...he came. He would not let her walk this path alone. For the man that was protecting them came from a very distant future...her beloved Captain, but he was not alone. He became aware of others along the way; a man whose body sparked with blue electricity, a woman clad in red, a man with glowing blue eyes, a woman with black hair and ice blue eyes, a set of twins whose eyes flash with gold, a group of people wielding various blades, and several knights, but it was the head knight that caught his attention...Papa. His father reborn had come to aid her once more and by his side, a beautiful woman with long blonde hair that smiled sadly at him...Mama. They had found each other again and that was all he needed to keep going.
As they entered the heart of the science tier, more people showed up, coming and going. They would take care of those trying to stop them then vanish so that the Star Child wouldn't see them. They stopped in front of a specific building and even he could feel it...pain, such excruciating and terrible pain. Something horrific had happened here yet he had a feeling that something was still happening because the silent avatar gripped his hand tightly, unadulterated fury radiating from her entire being.
Her power surged to the surface and blasted the door and a good chunk of the wall into dust before they walked inside. Sound, this was the most basic and primal power she currently possessed. This ability had been nurtured by the one she called Durga. It held the strongest emotional core and thus was the first power to return to her, in doing so, it reestablished the link between her and the Empress of the Sea, Kali. He could tell that her emotions were affecting the aquatic avatar...well more like she was attempting to absorb the ginger's fury so that the redhead could think straight.
As they ventured deeper into the complex, large transparent pipes filled with some kind of luminescent liquid began to appear. The deeper they went, the tighter her grip was on his hand. He was well aware that the bones in his tiny little hand were completely crushed yet he felt no pain. Now that did not make sense to him and he was a genius, so this phenomenon disturbed him greatly. Something was happening to him because his skin was beginning to glow...the same color as the water in the pipes.
The avatar finally spoke and told him not to be afraid. That the water in his body was simply reacting to the fluid in the pipes. Proximity to the original source...yes, that explained the reaction but not the origin of the mysterious glowing liquid. He asked her if she knew what it was and her answer made his stomach lurch...the essence of a Draconian, their life force. That's why she had reacted so negatively when she ingested the water before because she was connected to them and them to her.
The reason why she had suffered so much over the years was because the Draconians had been suffering, but they had tried to shield her, preventing her from knowing what was happening to them, but they could not prevent the humans from inflicting such terrible horrors upon her. When she drank the water, it broke the barrier holding all of their emotions, agony, and torment back from her, resulting in her murderous rampage earlier. She thanked him for saving her and tried to apologize but the little brat stomped on her foot, making her look at him in surprise.
He made it absolutely clear that none of this was her fault...that it was the people of Atlantis that chose to become this way. They were responsible, not her. She started crying again and she promised that things would be different the next time. She told him about her beloved Blood Guard and The Realm they called home. He smiled and said that he would be with her every step of the way...in his mind, it certainly explained why all those people showed up earlier. He then became very confused when she said 'I know.'
Hook: I do believe that a part 2 is in order, wench...or you rename the article.
Artz: *sighs* I know but I'll leave it as is and just do a part 2, but I do need to add some more images to break up the text a bit and give their eyes a break.
Yuna: You might as well just go ahead and the write the book because damn. *points at the article*
Artz: *withering look* Rub it in why don't ya.
Yuna: Okay.
Hook: *grabs Yuna before Artz could strangle her* We're leaving now so get started on that image search, wench. *makes a hasty exit with the giggling Yuna*
