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In the beginning, there was void. A dark space in which nothing flourished, nothing existed. It was a space known to none, filled with none, controlled by none. And then, there was one. We call her Death. She existed within the nothingness; sluggish but functional. For eons, and eons, she remained alone in what appeared to be her home, until the void sprouted a second entity of similar proportion. She is known now as Life. Without a world, they were shrouded in darkness, but they were no longer alone. As the world blossomed, created by their own hands, they grew further and further apart. The world, as it happened, separated their realms, and therefore separated them. Life began to create beings of her own, veering off the course that Death had set them up for. This drove a stake through what little relationship remained between them. Unlike the stories told today, they were not in love. Far from it, in fact. The lives Death took were not gifts from Life, no, they were her possessions; possessions Death wanted for herself. To Life, this was unacceptable, and so she set out to teach Death a lesson. While Life started with good intentions, she quickly lost them the more spirits Death gained. In her rage, she created a powerful creature, a creature who would return the souls to her. He was a creature moulded in the image she had taken on, and his sole purpose was to return the spirits of the dead to her, with or without bodies; his name was Lucifer.
This is where Spirit-Walkers come in. An ancient breed of viscets created by death himself to serve as protectors, guardians. They have been around since the dawn of humanity, their purpose to protect the spirits travelling between the living-world, and the soul-realm. For most, the thought of the afterlife is calm, peaceful, and they're right, but you have to get there first. The space in the middle, known to most as purgatory (as its true name was lost a long, long time ago), is full of creatures sent by Lucifer to condemn spirits to a life in the underworld.
For eons, spirit-walkers were born from the flames of their fallen predecessors, growing through the decades until they too joined the world they had fought tirelessly to protect. Each walker bears a mane of flames, and the nose most commonly associated with dragons. They differentiate in patterns only slightly, and while the exact shades vary, they have never drifted from the red, gold, and orange colour-spectrum. Spirit-Walkers shared such similar appearances, that the only changes were the colours of their eyes. Their eyes represented the souls that they would encounter upon during their lives. Then came Zephyr. The first of his kind, his fur was coated in scattered scales, his mane turning to mist as the flames evaporated against his cold skin. His fur was shades of blue and green, rather than the red hues that had accompanied the breed since their creation. The biggest difference, however, between Zephyr and all of those who had come before him, was that unlike them, he did not grow. From the moment he rose from the flames he knew that something was wrong. You see, Spirit-Walker cells differ from those of regular viscets, as they possess the capability of surviving the trip through the realm of the dead, while still having the opportunity to return. For most, this means their cells regenerate at a faster pace, but for Zephyr, it meant they did not grow, or regenerate at all. His body morphed through the realms, his cells liquid as he passed through each layer of reality. They sculpted themselves to fit the form best required. Due to this, his body never needed new cells, and so, he did not grow. He was destined to remain the same height as he had since birth, the same exact size as that he had been brought to life with. It makes his job as a Spirit-walker more difficult, as though he has the same strength, speed, and cunning as those before him, his size makes him an easier target.
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