Prologue : Nothingness

Silence. Deafening, Terrifying, Silence. I don’t know how much time has passed, or even if time exists. The longer I think, the longer I float here, unable to do anything but reminisce, the more regrets begin to surface.

While I was alive, I regretted nothing. My early years were dedicated to knowledge, to power. I did horrible things to people, animals, beasts, demons, even dragons. I say that I only killed Melinda’s son because he tried to eat me, but the truth is that I went looking for a baby dragon for decades. I needed an unformed dragons core, one that I could form around my own soul and use to reach deep, deep down into the elemental sea.

At least, that’s what I thought at the time. I never realized until it was too late that there are many ways to seek power, to seek knowledge. I chose the path of stealing it, from any and all. I chose poorly. I was barely a hundred years old by the time the Human’s started calling me a demon. Everyone who saw me ran in terror, Kingdoms fell just because I decided to stay there for a few years. By the time I was two-hundred parents used my name to scare their kids into being good.

“If you don’t brush your teeth at night the Demon-mage Freeney will curse you! Your teeth will fall out, your gums bleed, and your jaw will break!”

Melinda chased me around the world a few dozen times by the time I was Four-Hundred. I sparred with her often, but would always escape just before she could kill me. Looking back, I think that was my favorite time of life. I think that’s when I first started to notice my complete lack of relationships. My parents had disowned me long ago, my friends were all dead, or my enemies now. I had reached a certain point in my life where I had enough power to do just about anything, but had nothing that I really wanted to do and no one to do it with.

It was at this point that I decided to change my lifestyle. I went from living in extravagant mansions with servants and slaves at my beck and call to living in hovels in small villages. I told stories from my past, from the books that I had so slavishly gathered in my first couple of centuries of life. I learned how to tell tall tales, and for the next 600 years I lived quietly, studying magic and telling tales. My name all but forgotten in the Annals of History. The Demon-Mage Freeney, The Devourer, The Licentious, The Destroyer, The Forgotten.

In the end, I couldn’t complete my studies. I couldn't become immortal. Perhaps, I just lost my drive, my willingness to do anything to learn. Or, perhaps I just realized that being reborn would allow me to start over again. To live a life where I’d never been known as a demon or devil. My only true regret is that I never got to tell Melinda how I truly felt. She was the only one who understood me, understood the loneliness of supreme power, of hatred.

Time… Time… The lack of external stimuli slowly eats away at my mental processes. Slowly, ever so slowly, I stop thinking, stop being. My once all-powerful soul shutting down; going into hibernation.

When I used my forbidden technique that day so long ago, I offered up far more than just my lifeforce. Unknowingly, I offered up my very soul, my memories, my everything for that power. I would’ve never done it if I’d known what it was going to do to me, but it was the best thing that could’ve possibly happened.

Time…..

Time…..

Time…

*Swoosh* The beating of the waves. *Swoosh* As if I was sleeping in the middle of an enormous sea, the waves flowing around me. *Swoosh* Rocking back and forth. *Swoosh* More relaxing, more healing than you could possibly imagine.

I remember very little from my time before the Elemental Sea. By the time I finally became able to see again, my soul had already been cleansed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in the pursuit of knowledge, of power, I had caused a terrifying amount of damage to my soul. It took millennia after millennia to cleanse away the taint of what I had done, the lives sacrificed, the core stolen, the anger and pain of my childhood, all washed away. What a wonderous feeling it is, to leave behind the burdens of a hateful life. Even the elixir they force you to drink when you are reborn couldn't have erased my sins, yet the elemental sea did.

Part of the reason it took me so long to sense anything was that I had no eyes, no ears, no skin. In fact, I had no material form at all. From the moment that I began to feel again something changed in me. I could feel it, the endless sea of elements slowly moving back and forth, sometimes creating, sometimes destroying but always gentle, soothing. In mortal terms, the only way I could describe it would be as a womb. It felt… safe. Secure. Wonderful. I don’t know how long I stayed there, basking the the feeling of security before my consciousness began to slowly, hesitatingly, awake.

When I finally did awaken, I was lost. Massive chunks of my memories were missing. Those, unfortunately, came back. I will say this though, sometimes I wish that I'd just stayed put. Ignorance can be bliss.