When the warden flew off, Krala's vision suddenly darkened.

She thought maybe she was slipping into the dark place, the place where people all went when they died, but no, that was not it. She could still see the lightstone crystals and their shine above.

They were just dimmer because the warden's own light had been just that bright.

Krala breathed again. Her body always seized up whenever the warden came near her.

At first, when she first went into the tower with the shiny men and the shining warden, it had not been like that, but after…after the hurt, thousands and thousands of times hurting whenever he came near, whenever he spoke, she, her body just ended up like this when he was here.

Worthless. Useless.

Those two words had been engraved into her body and mind over and over and over again, and even though the pain, she got used to with some time, those words, she never did.

Even now, she was frozen up. She could not move. She could almost feel the blood pooling out from her hand and her foot, and she knew soon, her body would grow cold, and she would go to the dark place, but even then, she could not move.

But…but she had to.

Unlike her, that one was not useless.

Or worthless.

Unlike her, that one was not meant to exist only to bring misery and pain and suffering to everyone else. She called him that one because she knew in spending time with him that he did not like to be called a monster or a beast, but he had never really told her what he was.

That one was going to bring the Collective where there were no more differences and hate and love that did nothing but hurt.

Her vision stopped blurring.

She grit her teeth and tried to roll to her side and stand up, but she only ended up on her stomach, her breathing tightened against the cold stone floor. She had no hands to lift herself up with, nor did she have the physical strength.

All she could do was weakly look up and watch the warden put a hand on that one's back. A gentle touch, but she knew well more than anyone that that gentle touch, that love, would lead to pain and hurt.

She roused herself up, a weak, flickering purple aura covering her body, and her small, bloody, and broken figure started to float upwards, her arms and legs dangling limp and trickling little streams of blood that pattered on the cracked stone.

Almost no more mana. Nausea started to well up in her stomach, her vision shook again, but she kept going, kept floating. She neared the warden, his bright light, and she remembered the pain and hurt and froze, but…but she just closed her eyes and kept going.

Eventuall, she felt the warden's heat, and…and…

And what could she do?

She had no mana for Sapia. Even if she did, she could never have hurt the warden.

Why was she so worthless? So useless?

She hovered behind the warden, uncertain, and she knew for certain the warden knew she was there, he just did not care. He did not believe she would ever be able to raise the will to harm him.

And maybe, maybe just a day ago, that would have been true. But now, now she had to try and fight, because even if she were worthless, that one was not, and at the very least, her worthless self could be part of something better than her.

She shook her head and bit down on the warden's arm. Her teeth chipped as they tried to bite down on impossibly hard and dense flesh.

"Oh, my dear, you…have you lost your fear?" said the warden. He stiffened up, demeanor shifting into blatant hostility as his lean muscles tensed and his masked face swiveled to face Krala.

He took his immediate attention off of that one and slapped Krala away from his arm.

She fell straight down to the ground in a crumpled heap, her cheek burst and blood pouring through her tiny teeth. She did not feel much pain, just a tiny pinprick, and she knew she was getting cold and numb and reaching the dark place.

"You reject my love?" said the warden as he stood over her. "After all these years accepting it? Why?

Why? Tell me, why? Do you not know that my love is the only thing that gives you value? Without my love granting you exquisite taste, you are nothing.

A completely worthless speck of dust that worms around in the dark where no living thing should. You think you have any worth aside from your taste? Do you?

Do you not remember? Why you came to under my embrace? You were abandoned as a child because your kind sinned against the Common Body and waged war.

The reason your old teacher, that heretical sorcerer, was purged was because of you, and he believed in you so very much. Your greed and selfishness killed him.

All you do is cause pain and misery for all around you. You have no right to exist on this world, to breathe the very same air we do.

You are nothing. Do you understand me?" The warden knelt to Krala's limp body and placed his masked face close to her ear, his hand stroking strands of dirty blood-soaked hair away from her forehead.

Suddenly, he shouted in her ear. "NOTHING!"

The sudden powerful shout sent powerful force crashing through her ears, and she felt the warmth of blood trickle out from them as her hearing completely faded.

Her brain rattled and her ears whined and her body got number as she widened her eyes and gaped open her mouth, staring up only at the sunny ceiling again.

In the corner of her vision, the warden shook his head at her and walked away.

All her senses were taken from her. The world was soundless. Her touch was numbing. Her sight was shaking blurring, mixing the colors and shapes in front of her all into one nauseating slurry.

She closed her eyes to blink.

It was hard to open them again.

But that made sense. It made sense she could not even do something as simple as blinking. She was nothing. She was worthless.

She knew the warden was right. He told her again and again she lived only to make others suffer and feel pain and misery, and she knew he was right, because for so long, all she wanted to do was see others hurt like her.

She was not good. She was not nice.

She was not anything.

Mother would have been disappointed in her. She was always nice, even if it was hard to remember her.

Why was it, though? She would have liked to remember mother. Even just her face. But it was so hard. All she could remember was mother leaving her, and that was it.

But she could not blame her mother. After all, she was worthless. Her existence had no meaning but to cause pain and suffering. Mother probably knew that and threw her away.

Even then, she wanted to remember-

Remember…

Remember…

She remembered-

__

Krala clung tight to her mother's side as her mother flew through the air, purple trails of magical energy moving her this way and that. The air was hot. Almost burning, and Krala went into a coughing fit, burying her face into her mother's chest.

"Just a little more, my dearest moon," said mother, her voice ever so strong and calm at the same time. Her body was warm, comfortably warm unlike the hot air everywhere which cracked Krala's lips and singed the tips of her hair.

The flickering and crackling of fires raged everywhere below. Krala was scared, but even then, she was still curious. She looked up.

The eternal moon shone above, one half of it pale and silver and the other half drenched in angry red.

Then she looked down.

A vast landscape of cracked earth filled with twisting spires of stone, canyons, and rock formations that floated in haphazard patterns everywhere, defying gravity. This was Zerul, the home she had forgotten, the ream of the daemons and vampyrs.

There was fire everywhere.

Krala was high up enough where the fires looked like a red coat of shimmering hairs covering the rocky ground.

Like Kerberus' fiery hair. She wondered why mother did not take Kerberus with them. She missed him and his wagging tail and always happy eyes already.

She had told him to stay in the room and that she would be back soon. She strained her eyes and found far away, almost a black dot now, the big house she lived in.

A castle, people said it was.

There was fire on there too.

Bright lights of many different colors shone everywhere with the fire. Greens and reds and yellows and blues.

Then, all of a sudden, it was like the world had turned white.

Krala saw as a huge burst of light swallowed up her home and everything around it. She closed her eyes from the blinding light.

A gust of strong wind buffeted mother, rocking Krala, and she hunkered down, holding her mother's waist tight.

Force traveled through Krala, rattling her very bones, and she whimpered in fear. The sound of the earth rumbling made her feel uneasy, like the whole world was about collapse.

When Krala opened her eyes again, she saw the black dot of the castle again, but this time, it floated in the air atop an enormous crater larger than some of the canyons below.

"Another zero-bomb," whispered mother under her breath as she righted herself in the air. Krala balled her mother's robes in her fists in worry.

Mother only ever talked to herself when she needed to think hard about something important.

"All seven courts disabled. Six out of seven dukes dead. Castle shielding down now. Only a matter of time before they get to him and the collapse begins," said mother.

Her purple eyes narrowed as her thel, almost as long as her own body, wrapped around Krala, holding her tight before it linked with her own thel. "How much time do I have? Three minutes? No, two. Have to go now, while they're distracted with him.

Have to go faster. Airspace won't be free for much longer."

Mother put a soft hand to Krala's head. "My moon, hold to me tight. You might get dizzy."

"Where are we going, mother? Will…will we come back for Kerberus?" said Krala.

"Hmm." Mother's body tensed up for a second, like she was thinking about something bad, before she relaxed. "Mother is taking you some place safe and far away. Kerberus…he's a good boy.

He will wait for you. We can't take him now, but maybe, when you're big enough, you can come back and take him."

Krala nodded, feeling mother's calm infuse into her through their link.

Mother started to fly downwards, her wings flapping once, launching her through a series of ash clouds as she headed to the ground. Mother was fast. Very fast to the point where Krala could only see dizzying blurs of color and feel the wind scream and whistle around her when mother flew.

But mother stopped abruptly soon.

"Curse the gods above," muttered mother, and Krala looked up to see her face twisted in rage. Krala was not afraid.

Mother got angry at other people a lot, but never, ever at Krala. She followed mother's gaze downwards, and her eyes widened in wonder.

"Wow," said Krala in curiosity.

There were…there were so many things here she had only seen in her picture books.

A huge floating ball of metal and circuits floating on tails of fiery engine exhaust. A dwarven gunship. Krala had read about them just a bit. She was just six, but she knew that the gunships could hold over five hundred people, and that they could beat up strong monsters all by themselves.

Beside it, a tree just as large floated in the air. A dozen rings of varying shining lights surrounded the tree, making it float. Krala also knew this. It was a faerie skytree. But she had not gotten to learn about the faeries much yet: that was for next week's lesson.

But…but what were these things all doing here, in Zerul where nobody usually ever visited?

"All flight-capable sorcerers are to be part of the aerial assault against the daemon king's castle," came a projected male voice from the gunship. Several huge barrels dotting the metal sphere groaned as they pointed to mother and Krala. "Identify yourself."

Krala knew these things, cannons, she remembered they were, were very dangerous and meant to hurt and kill monsters, so why were they aimed at her?

"Mother-," she began in worry.

"Calm, my moon, calm," said mother, and Krala nodded, almost dozing off as calm filled her mind.

Before she could feel sleep fully overtake her, she heard mother whispering to herself.

"One C-class gunship with, hm, let's say two compromised engines, judging by their sputtering. One evergreen skytree with forty, no fifty faeries managing it. All of them weak." Mother nodded to herself and Krala caught a glimpse of her pale face under her hood before she fell asleep.

Mother's mouth was bared open in a half-smile, long fangs protruding in menacing anticipation.