-Maniacal laugher- Finished~

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ we depend on you
554 words
War and wastelands, there would always be fighting somewhere in the universe. Raygaard was just usually better at avoiding it.
To be fair, the Trevellites were typically an unproblematic race and last time Raygaard had visited this outpost it had seemed peaceful.
There was nothing but rubble and overcast skies now as he trudged back towards his ship.
Glass cracked beneath his foot and reflexively he glanced down and winced as he realized what he'd stepped on. A pod casing.
Trevellite young were kept in specialized development pods for the first few months after being born and as Raygaard turned his head to view the broken building he was passing through he became fairly certain it had formerly been a nursery.
He increased his pace, wanting nothing more than to return to his ship and be on his way, and he had almost cleared the ruins when he heard it.
His mind protested that it was just the wind even as his body froze.
He waited breathlessly for the sound to come again, hoping that it wouldn't.
It did.
He turned and forced himself to sift through the wreckage towards the crying, using the tip of his tail to turn over bits of wayward debris until he was upon the sound.
He knelt, scales clinking against shards, and carefully hooked his claws under a bit of warped metal.
The crying stilled to a stifled whimper, then went silent entirely as he lifted away the metal.
It was, unfortunately, exactly what he expected.
A Trevellite child, old enough to survive outside of the pod, but barely.
"Hey there," he reached out towards her and she just stared. She was far too young to have a translator implant, too young probably to speak her own language.
Actually, Raygaard thought as he reached for her, it was possible he was the first face she'd ever really seen.
She stumbled willingly into his arms and was still as he lifted her and stood.
"Oh little one," he sighed as he looked around the desolated settlement "What am I to do with you."
She didn't reply and even if she had been capable
he doubted she would have had an answer.
The bay door lowered with a hiss and Raygaard stepped up the ramp into the familiar surroundings of his ship.
With his arms occupied, Raygaard used the tip of his tail to snag a bundle of clothes he'd stashed underneath a console and arranged them in a makeshift nest in an empty bucket.
He didn't think Trevellites nested, but he didn't know what else to do with the fragile creature.
She didn't seem too opposed to the idea as he settled her down. She just stared at him silently, yellow eyes unblinking, her gray face coated in brown grime.
"You're filthy," he told her. She didn't seem to mind.
He was about to turn away when a glint of metal caught his eye. There was a thin band around her wrist. Carefully he lifted her hand up to inspect it.
There were letters on it. A name.
"Nickiya?" He wasn't sure if that was the correct pronunciation, but he'd have to call her something on the 8 week journey to the nearest Trevellite colony.
"Alright Nickiya," he said "Let's get you something to eat."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ the wolves will always call you back
575 words
The fox panted, winded just from the effort of the chase, too exhausted to do anything more than clutch the sword and glare across the wild untended garden at his opponent.
The peacock flared his wings and laughed “Oh how far you’ve come Matthias. Are you proud of yourself? Are you prepared to rejoin your family?”
Matthias looked around slowly, the roses had overtaken the town, wild and thorny tangles creeping down over the broken fences and red flowers like faces blocking the openings of the doors and windows.
The graveyard was hidden behind a thicket of beautiful thorns but he still knew where it was.
Matthias laughed and lost his grip on the sword. With his free hand he gripped at his elbow stump, feeling the damp of the cloth wrapped around the injury, and realizing he was still bleeding.
“Yeah,” he rasped in reply to Tojen’s question “I am.”
Tojen laughed again, much quieter, and he stalked closer, glittering blade clutched in his talons “I told you, didn’t I? I told you that you could not escape.”
Matthias closed his eyes, drawn back to the day when a tiny boy watched his whole world drown in blood and steel. His own life only spared through the sacrifice of his elder brother.
He had lived with that day on his shoulders. He had lived with the knowledge that everyone and everything he had ever loved had been destroyed one the words of a mad prophet, a noble driven to terror by the thought that some day he would die at the hand of a nameless farmer from a nameless village.
“Oh isn’t it a relief,” Tojen hissed “Isn’t it a relief to let it all end, to finally accept that I am stronger than fate.”
“You aren’t stronger than anything,” Matthias rebutted, as he sank to his knees, dizzy from the blood loss “When you kill me you won’t have won anything.”
Tojen paused “I’ll have conquered destiny, I’ll have overcome that which was set in stone.”
“You’ll have slaughtered an entire village for nothing,” Matthias said “When I die, I’ll be the last one capable of fulfilling that absurd prophecy, it will be proof that you killed mothers and fathers and children to protect yourself for nothing.”
He smiled and held his hand out, palm upturned “When I die, it will be proof it was all for nothing Tojen. Nothing at all.”
Tojen looked as though he did not know what to make of that information and shook his head with a hiss “Rationalize it however you please fox, but you are going to die.”
“I know,” Matthias lowered his ears tiredly “It’s alright, I never really stood a chance anyway.”
“Perhaps you did,” Tojen lifted his blade and set it against Matthias’ neck and gave him a look of mocking pity “But not anymore.”
Matthias closed his eyes, focusing on anything but the icy cold metal pressing down against his neck, the grass beneath his knees, the drenched scent of the roses, and the whistle of the wind as it passed through the tired shell of a village.
It was strange but comforting to think that the same ground that held the blood of his family would hold his as well. The roses that crept over the bodies would cover him as well.
He would die to satisfy the paranoia of a mad noble, but he would at least die at home.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ pine
326 words
The leaves crackled beneath his heel and the forest plummeted into silence.
Skipper froze, dread sinking into the pit of his soul. Then slowly, unwillingly, as if his motions were being dictated by a puppeteer's strings, the young otter turned, the empty journal clutched to his chest as his only defense.
Behind him the trees rose like towers, straight and stark and the ground dropped away into rocky shadow. Skipper tried to take in a breath, tried to reassure himself there was nothing there, tried to dismiss his spike of anxiety as irrational. He drew in a breath of air, tasting the scent of the pine on his tongue.
He was alone.
Then it rose.
Its hunched back dripped with twigs and loose soil and the top of its head brushed through the tops of the lowest branches of the trees, hundreds of feet above the young otter.
With a crackling, a thick neck turned a featureless face towards Skipper and he found himself stared down by empty sockets. A light began to grow in those gaping holes as they bored into him and as he watched twin pale flames burst to life within the hollow sockets.
He sucked in a sharp cold breath and the being reached out a claw, creaking like a tree laboring in a storm's wind.
The journal slipped from Skipper's numb fingers and hit the ground with a dull thud as the otter turned and ran.
Blindly he threw himself back into the thickets, clothes tangling and catching as he crashed down through the trunks of the trees. No was no bellow of fury from behind him, no roar of rage, just the sound of a strong wind whistling and the crack of breaking branches.
It followed him, its voice, if it had one, silent, the only sound came from its heaving its huge body through the dry growth.
The only sound was the breaking of the pines beneath strange hands.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ godforsaken
363 words
As he came awake Serpens found himself coughing out a mouthful of dust, throat stinging and eyes watering.
As he blinked away the tears he realised he was slumped over the Solar Hawk's flight controls which were also coated in dust.
"What?" The word came out weak and awkward over his dry tongue.
"Connnnnnngratulations!" A voice, too loud and familiar sounded off in his ear "You've officially gone where no man has gone."
"Scorpius," Serpens muttered as he sat up and glared at the multidimensional being standing over him "What did you do to my starcraft."
"Me? Haha! No, that wasn't me, boyo. Although you do have me to thank for landing you in this top of the line sightseeing location."
Serpens stood, wincing as every bruised patch of skin and sore muscle let themself be known.
He shook himself gingerly, a fine shower of particles floating down off him. Then he turned his attention to the Solar Hawk.
"Why won't anything turn on," Serpens demanded after a fruitless attempt "What did you do to the ship?"
Scorpius shrugged "Dead battery? I really don't know Serpens. But really you should be bothering yourself about what's inside the ship, but without."
"What is it? What's out there?" Serpens snapped as he yanked his rifle free from its hold on his back "Why did you bring me here?"
"Quite a few reasons honestly, but one of them has a time limit and you really might want to consider handling it sooner rather than later."
Scorpius hovered about him, looking less like a shadow and more like a collection of dark particles suspended in the air. Insubstantial still, but with an odd sense of form to him now.
"Don't forget that exosuit."
"How do you even know about that?" Serpens shook his head "Nevermind."
He released the manual catches for the bay door and it fell with a groan, raising red dust all around him.
"Sorry about the mess," Scorpius said "It's been a few millennia since anyone's bothered to sweep."
"Oh," the breath leaked out of Serpens as he stepped out into the red sunlight and looked down on the ruins of an entire civilization.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

"I know! I know, okay?"
354 words
"I know you'd hardly appreciate me prying into your private business."
In an instant, Kwet was on the defensive, his wings flattening and tightening against his back, fingers curling into fists.
Ishton had an apologetic look on his face and a tablet in his hand. "But..."
"But what?" Ishton sighed "Your....condition...intrigued me...In a sense." Kwet was certain he was leaving dents in his palms.
"Most of it I expected, from knowing you, but, I didn't think..."
Kwet's wings drooped in defeat "What?"
"The life expectantly, most Neglecteds don't live past-"
"I know, I know," the doctor's wings drooped lower "Yeah... I try not to think about it."
"Do you know how much-"
Kwet shrugged and turned "There's no telling. I could start to fade any day."
Ishton shook his head and followed Kwet as the doctor walked to the balcony "Aveth knows?" Kwet wrapped his arms over his chest.
"Doctor, he does know?"
Kwet looked up at the yellow tinged clouds. "Kwet."
"I've tried," Kwet's voice was thick and choked "I've tried so many times, but every time... I don't know, I just can't get it out."
Ishton set his free hand carefully on Kwet's shoulder, holding out the tablet.
"What's this?"
"Reassignment orders. If you want them. It's the science and medical research on Ji-7. It's a quiet place, out of the way but not isolated."
"You don't have to do this."
"I know," but Ishton held the tablet out a little further "But you deserve a bit of peace."
Kwet relented and took the tablet and started to scroll through it "It's..."
"For both of you. If you want it, for as long as you want." Kwet's wings were hanging so low the tips scraped the ground.
"Thank you, I'll talk to Aveth," Kwet pulled his wings up "Thank you."
"Of course," Ishton nodded, then after a moment of hesitation extended his wings forwards. Startled, Kwet tried to make eye contact but Ishton steadily kept his gaze lowered. Hands shaking slightly, Kwet stretched his own wings and metal rang softly as the tips met.
"Whatever you decide, I hope you're happy, Doctor."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ mine
718 words

Give her back!"

The demand cracked out through the snow like a whip, startling the Ocean Princess almost as much as the knife that sank into her arm a second later. 

She shouted in surprise and yanked away, the blade slid through her flesh, leaving a long dark gash in her white fur but drawing no blood. 

"Where did you take her!?"
This time the Princess sidestepped the wild attack from the little girl and caught the wrist that held the silver weapon, twisting it and causing the girl to stumble. 

"What do you think you're-" 

"Give me back my mother!" Shyshie cut the Princess off and wrenched herself free from the white cat's grip and scrambled several step back, still clutching the knife.

The Princess stared at Shyshie for a moment as the brown cat panted for breath, steam pouring in puffs from her mouth to mingle with the falling flakes. 

"No."

The small word had an ugly snarl of rage spitting from Shyshie's throat and she pulled her arm up, prepared to continue her attack but the Princess waved her hand in dismissal of the act. 

"Not until you honor our deal."
Shyshie scoffed "Me? You're the one who's breaking it right now!" 

The Princess blinked "What?"

Shyshie took a long breath and straightened her shoulders "Our deal was built on you returning my mother to me. Safely. I could dissolve our deal right now because of what you've done!" 

"No you can't," The Princess lifted a brow "That's against the rules."

"What rules?" Shyshie's smile revealed her teeth "The rules for a selkie? For a mortal? I'm neither Princess, those rules don't apply."

"Yes...yes they..." The Princess faltered and Shyshie's smile grew sharper. 

"No they don't," Shyshie advanced slowly through the snow, the knife held out in front of her, a glimmering shard in the softness of the snowfall "That's why you wanted me isn't it? Because of what I could get away with for you. Did you even think about what I  can get away with." 

"Nothing, nothing. You have no power outside of what I gave you."
"Yeah, but what does power like that do to someone like me?" The tip of the  knife hovered inches away from the Princess "What can I do with it?"

Her paw half raised The Ocean Princess stared down at the little mixed blood mortal, eyes wide and glazed.

"You don't know do you? You don't have a single clue."

"It could destroy you," the Princess hissed "It could tear you to pieces."

"It might," Shyshie breathed as she leaned closer "We might cause a lot of problems for each other Ossi Pri. Problems that can start right now."

"Do you think you can stand before me mortal?" The Princess curled her fingers "Do you think that there is any outcome that your challenge doesn't end with you and your mother dead?"

"Do you really want to start over? Waiting again for another vulnerable mongrel to hand themself over to you? If you kill me then whatever plans you have are turned on their heads."
Shyshie breathed a puff of steam over the Princess's face "Give me back my mother. I'll keep playing your game."

"You were ignoring me," the Princess's voice came out cold, her words more frigded than the winter air "What's to keep you from doing it again?"

"I was busy, I couldn't come."

"Hm," the Princess flicked one ear thoughtfully and turned away, fingers trailing against the knife "Fine. But next time you will answer. I know your mother's health is restored."

"Fine."

The white cat nodded and began to stalk off into the snowfall, coat flickering behind her. 

"Hey wait!" Shyshie shouted as the Princess began to disppear "Where's my mother? Come back here!"

 She charged after the fading figure only to have it dissipate like smoke before her "Princess! Ossi Pri! Give her back!" 

She whirled around trying to pick out the Princess from the white swirling snow, but as she turned there was nothing but the quiet storm settling all around her. 

Then a shadow staggered out of the white oblivion, loose nightclothes billowing out in the wind and yellow eyes wide with shock as they met Shyshie's gaze. 

"Mama!" 

"Starwalk?" Darkmoon stuttered her daughter's name over numb lips "What??"

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ dead fall
209 words
He didn't know what he'd been trying to do. He'd seen the enemy lancer turn their sites on Veem. He screamed over the dead comm
It was fatal.
He knew enough about anatomy to know that. The weapon had impaled him through the shoulder and wing and he could see the horror in Veem's eyes as their gazes met.
The pain began to fade, leaking away as his own Light leaked out from his body in glittering strands of starlit, weightless and dancing in the infinite.
He could feel the pull of the planet behind him and Tovoth had not the strength nor the will to resist as gravity claimed him.
Through the haze he could see Veem hurtling towards him with total disregard for the battle raging at his back, hands reaching out.
With the last vestiges of his strength Tovoth reached back, mind too dim to realize that even if Veem caught there was nothing to be done.
For the space of a second, fingertips touched and
Tovoth felt a final flicker of warmth. And the last thing he saw was the glow of the transportation beam as it plucked Veem free from the chaos and the last thing Tovoth knew was that his friend was safe.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ no one, nowhere
333 words
"This is desolation, this is utter ruination, the end result of any and every civilization-"
"Yes I think I get it," Serpens cut off the shadow at his side "It's an abandoned city."
"Not just a city, it is a citadel," Scorpius corrected "And no it is not abandoned, it was never abandoned."
Serpens looked down at the crumbling buildings with a lifted brow.
"They're all dead, yes, but they never left, so I really would not consider it abandoned."
Serpens shook his head with a sigh "It's empty now."
"Well it's got you in it and unless you get to the Eye and keep it from closing you're going to stay here for a very, very long time dear boy."

"What are you talking about now?"

Scorpius sighed and rolled his supernova bright eyes "This place! It is not fixed in time or space, right now its positioned perfectly for you to escape, but you aren't going anywhere with that ship and by the time you fix it who knows? You might be on the other end of the universe or nowhere at all, trapped in between realities until the Eye guides this place fancies returning to your own dimension. But! If you can keep the Eye propped open then you'll have more than enough time to fix your ship."
"And what do you get out of all of this?"
Scorpius huffed "Let's walk and talk shall we? I don't get anything per se, but you're a smart person no?" he swung out with a quick step towards the faded suggestion of a path the led down into the broken city "Smart people solve problems, there are currently, quite a few problems out there, no? So think of this as my attempt to make the universe a little better."

Serpens nodded, slowly at first, then quicker "You're doing this entirely for your own benefit."
Scoripus slumped, defeated "Yes, but as a silver lining I promise it won't kill you."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ shake
1076 words
Shake, shiver, and cursed be the long night.
Sleep no longer comes easily to me as I lie in my lonely bed. Awake I stare and listen to the groanings of the house, the old house built long before I opened my eyes to the world, to cover heads not of my blood.
Most nights the old wood has a loud voice as it settles, shouting and complaining about its age, but tonight it is quiet, as though the very beams above my head are holding their breath.
It makes me uneasy.
I slip from my bed to check, not the windows that don't latch properly or the doors that swell in their frame and refuse to let me turn their locks, but the room directly across from mine.
I cannot lie to myself that it is anything other than selfishness that insists she sleeps so close to me. But after the first time I lost her any distance stings, even that of a few steps brings me grief.
The door is not shut, but that is no great surprise, she's not bothered the way I am about being barricaded in while she sleeps.
It should make me glad to know that she doesn't fear things stirring while she sleeps soundly, give me some sort of reassurance that I am perhaps doing something right.
Instead it concerns me, worries me, am I not instilling within her a distrust of the false sense of safety that everyday routine lulls us into?
I swallow down that doubt, it is too heavy for me to bear at such an hour and I ease the door open further.
The blankets are in a tousle, lumped, I think, around her as she sleeps, probably mussed from her tossing through some unsettled dream.
I step into the room, careful, quiet, and reach out to straighten the sheets. Only to be met with the sight of an empty bed.
My heart begins to sink and my soul sickens, but surely, surely she had simply slipped out for a drink of water. I had heard nothing, not the door creak nor the floorboards complain, but she had always had a light step. She was more like me in that aspect than her father.
Or perhaps I had not been so alert as I had thought, drifting off for a moment and had become unaware and deaf to any sounds she would have made.
As I descend the stairs I catch a drifting chill and realize the air smells wrong. It is sharp, fresh and clean, not the typical musty scent that clung to the corners of old china cabinets.
At the base of the stairs I stop and my veins run with ice water.
The door is open.
My daughter is gone.
Adrenaline rushes through me and I'm running, without shoes, without a coat or a lantern. Out the door, out into the night. Down the street, screaming her name. Running, tears running down my face.
I can't. I can't do this.
Not again.
A flicker of movement at the farthest house. She there, walking away from me.
I shout her name, but she does not turn, gives no sign that she heard.
Again and again I shout, calling for her to come back to me but she does not respond even as I grow closer.
She's walking unhurriedly, something, a sheet or a blanket, wrapped around her and fluttering in the breeze.
But somehow she's faster than I am, always ahead, always turning the furthest corner just as I think I've begun to close the gap.
At first I thought it was the ramblings of a sleepwalker but as our mad midnight chase wore on I recognized a pattern, my revelation no doubt aided by the sting of salt in the air and the distant roar pouring out from that ever speaking yet mouth-less entity.
My daughter is going down to the sea.
Or the sea is drawing her in.
I do not know.
But I wish I had the presence of mind to take up my sword before I had gone dashing out the door or at least a lantern. There is something in the air.
I shout but I can not overcome the voice of the ocean. I cannot contest the might of the dark waters as they call my girl away to make her theirs, no matter how much I plead.
It raises its arms out to take her, mist spins off the waves and sinks the ships at their moors. It sweeps down the docks, a pale dark storm to swallow the child.
I try, oh I strive, but I am exhausted and I stumble, I fall to my knees and the cobblestones soak up the blood from my cuts and the dirt crust the stained patches in my clothes. I try to stand but I cannot, I try to crawl but I am too weak and I can manage no more than a few feeble inches before I sink to my chest.
Once more I call her name, weakly.
Then my voice gives out.
My throat is too hoarse to sustain the words no matter how I strain.
Though my call was fainter than all the times before, it was that last plea that finally turned her head.
For a moment, a hopeful foolhardy moment, I think she'll return to me, she will come and let me wrap my arms around her and make her safe.
But she either has not the will or the desire to resist the whispers of the icy deeps.
My child, my precious little one turns her back on me and the mist folds over her.
I lose sight, I lose sight of her as she walks away from me but I hear, and my heart dies within me, I hear the splash.
Desperation raises me to my feet and sends me staggering forwards, my breath a sharp knife in my lungs.
I pass from cobblestone street to wooden planks and I can go no further.
The land ends.
Before me is the sea, dark and indifferent to me.
The ripples spread out in the water, marking her fall, marking where a mouth had opened to take its prey and shut again.
I shake, I shiver, I curse the night.
I take a breath. I curl my fists.
And I plunge into the icy grips of a sea that does not want me.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

/ glory
203 words
"oh, wow."
At Lynx's soft exclamation, Andromeda and Siren exchanged a concerned glance and scrambled the rest of the way up the ridge to join the boy, who was staring skywards.
Neither of them spoke as they tilted their heads upwards and stared.
"When they said the universe was big," Andromeda whispered after a moment "This wasn't what I had in mind."
The dark plateau before them was finite, the horizon ceding into a fine white line. It was what hung over their heads that stunned the trio. It filled the sky with more lights than any natural spread of stars, spreading out further and deeper than their eyes could reach, dazzling them.
Metal framework spiraled out like the crafting of a great, meticulous spider, small crafts fluttering and buzzing through the strands, adding to the explosion of light and activity above them.
"What...is it?" Lynx breathed quickly.
"It is civilization," Siren murmured after a moment "This is what humanity always dreamed of."
"Well aren't we the lucky ones, to be the first to see it," Andromeda was the first to compose herself in the face of the vast synthetic planet "We just need to figure out how to get up there now."