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I descend into the depths, through narrow, rocky tunnels which still glow with little limpid piles of golden ember: pulverized granite and vegetable ash, scorched and riven by my astral fury. The blackened walls are marred by strange channels within the stone, twisted and winding – the telltale imprints of the roots and vines which until recently strangled these caves; As I stalk deeper into the hollow crust of this benighted ice-ball I trace the serpentine patterns with one clawed hand.
The effect is less severe, but I can feel its presence within the very ground: the terrible blandness that I now recognize as the hallmark of Darkseid’s touch. Pursuing that awful sensation, at the very limits of my vision I catch glimpses of movement. It is swift, sinuous, slithering around corners and coiling behind stalagmites, burrowing into the dusty basalt floor - and in every case before I can identify it, it vanishes from my sight.
As I approach a fork in the path, a looming divergence of ways lined with stony spikes, like the throat of some great and lordly beast (myself for instance, in days gone by) a familiar sensation steals over me. I am angry – no, I am furious. Astral charge arcs and leaps across my gleaming scales; it crackles in the back of my throat, lighting the darkened tunnels in shades of molten gold.
This anger in and of itself isn’t unusual, and gives me no pause. There are a great many things about my situation for which I might be justly livid with rage. There is another emotion alongside it, however, mixed inextricably to the point where I could not truly call them separate feelings. While I have never experienced it personally before, I know its flavor well: Anger fed by sorrow – the towering, righteous rage of the bereaved.
I halt in my tracks, the clack of my talons upon the stone floor echoing through the silent tunnels. These are not my emotions; there is a shadow upon my thoughts, an echo of a grief and a fury the depths of which I have seldom encountered. It is a vengeful sadness so all-encompassing that even with my telepathic abilities at their current, humiliating ebb I can feel it as though it were my own – and it seems to come from everywhere at once.
Bursting from the tunnels head a ripple races along the walls – a swift and subtle disruption heralded by a bass note so deep that it is felt rather than heard, so quick that I can scarcely track it. It washes over me, a horrible crawling tingle, and is gone as swiftly as it came. I whip around, looking back from whence I’ve come – and see only darkness.
I snarl, anger and apprehension clashing with the foreign feelings. Even with only one functional pair of pathetically weak eyes, those tunnels did not appear so dim when I traversed but moments past – and even as I watch, they grow darker.
I raise my right hand and cosmic power crackles across my claws, the blazing golden light of a primeval catastrophe casting flickering shadows across the ancient basalt; Shadows which move and dance in ways that do not match my surroundings.
Shadows of creatures which are not present.
Echoing through the tunnels, a scream rises, then another, until a chorus of wailing agony assaults my aural canals with all of the subtlety of an iron brick. It is an empty sound, a pantomime: despair without the possibility of joy, shriven of context and value.
I sneer. If Darkseid’s puppets wish to frighten me they would do well to –
‘HOW COULD YOU?!’
The alien voice pounds against my consciousness. It carries more than just words, an ontological heft which bears deeper truths. I am abruptly consumed by the undeniable certainty that I am being addressed by the very soul of this frozen little world.
A word flickers across my brain.
Arbiter.
It seems that there are forces at work in this vile little drama with which I had not reckoned.
The stone beneath my feet cracks apart. The walls and ceiling dissolve, running and melting, ancient igneous rock dripping and sagging in a way that should not be possible without incredible heat. I have just enough time howl my cackling defiance before the ground gives way entirely, and, cosmic power and vivid scorn blazing bright in equal measure, I am sent tumbling into the dark.
The effect is less severe, but I can feel its presence within the very ground: the terrible blandness that I now recognize as the hallmark of Darkseid’s touch. Pursuing that awful sensation, at the very limits of my vision I catch glimpses of movement. It is swift, sinuous, slithering around corners and coiling behind stalagmites, burrowing into the dusty basalt floor - and in every case before I can identify it, it vanishes from my sight.
As I approach a fork in the path, a looming divergence of ways lined with stony spikes, like the throat of some great and lordly beast (myself for instance, in days gone by) a familiar sensation steals over me. I am angry – no, I am furious. Astral charge arcs and leaps across my gleaming scales; it crackles in the back of my throat, lighting the darkened tunnels in shades of molten gold.
This anger in and of itself isn’t unusual, and gives me no pause. There are a great many things about my situation for which I might be justly livid with rage. There is another emotion alongside it, however, mixed inextricably to the point where I could not truly call them separate feelings. While I have never experienced it personally before, I know its flavor well: Anger fed by sorrow – the towering, righteous rage of the bereaved.
I halt in my tracks, the clack of my talons upon the stone floor echoing through the silent tunnels. These are not my emotions; there is a shadow upon my thoughts, an echo of a grief and a fury the depths of which I have seldom encountered. It is a vengeful sadness so all-encompassing that even with my telepathic abilities at their current, humiliating ebb I can feel it as though it were my own – and it seems to come from everywhere at once.
Bursting from the tunnels head a ripple races along the walls – a swift and subtle disruption heralded by a bass note so deep that it is felt rather than heard, so quick that I can scarcely track it. It washes over me, a horrible crawling tingle, and is gone as swiftly as it came. I whip around, looking back from whence I’ve come – and see only darkness.
I snarl, anger and apprehension clashing with the foreign feelings. Even with only one functional pair of pathetically weak eyes, those tunnels did not appear so dim when I traversed but moments past – and even as I watch, they grow darker.
I raise my right hand and cosmic power crackles across my claws, the blazing golden light of a primeval catastrophe casting flickering shadows across the ancient basalt; Shadows which move and dance in ways that do not match my surroundings.
Shadows of creatures which are not present.
Echoing through the tunnels, a scream rises, then another, until a chorus of wailing agony assaults my aural canals with all of the subtlety of an iron brick. It is an empty sound, a pantomime: despair without the possibility of joy, shriven of context and value.
I sneer. If Darkseid’s puppets wish to frighten me they would do well to –
‘HOW COULD YOU?!’
The alien voice pounds against my consciousness. It carries more than just words, an ontological heft which bears deeper truths. I am abruptly consumed by the undeniable certainty that I am being addressed by the very soul of this frozen little world.
A word flickers across my brain.
Arbiter.
It seems that there are forces at work in this vile little drama with which I had not reckoned.
The stone beneath my feet cracks apart. The walls and ceiling dissolve, running and melting, ancient igneous rock dripping and sagging in a way that should not be possible without incredible heat. I have just enough time howl my cackling defiance before the ground gives way entirely, and, cosmic power and vivid scorn blazing bright in equal measure, I am sent tumbling into the dark.
739/2500 words