So, its been a while since I've posted. I really have no excuses for not posting, as its not like I've been busy. I just ran into the same problem I always run into while writing - Self-doubt.

Sadly, I tend to be the kind of person that avoids things when I lack confidence in doing as well as I think I should, rather than confronting them, learning from them, and moving on.

So today, I finally forced myself to sit down and write two chapters (well, a chapter and an interlude, but same thing) because I felt bad for not posting for nearly two months, even if there aren't many readers.

I'll post the next one in a bit.

On the Mysteries of the Desolate Lands and Curtain of Desolation: By The Luminary of The Gods

Part One - The Birth of the Gods

Dolunay was not the first, nor will it be the last. Long ago, in times ancient, within the cosmos a consciousness was born. Sadly, as with all things, it began as an infant, lacking knowledge, direction, and understanding. In its curiosity it was careless of its power and lacking of a companion to inhibit its actions. Born among the cosmos itself, this Being had unmatched power despite its infancy. Knowing not what it was doing, it cared little for its surroundings, and in its carelessness, it destroyed. It did not take much time before the first tentative presence approached the Being. But this presence seemed weak in comparison; fractured. The Being Hungered. And so it devoured. For an unknown amount of time, this process continued, with the Being in its curiosity and lack of awareness and foresight leaving destruction in its path.

Eons later, a sense of awareness was created and its infantile state was gone. However, by that time, it had destroyed a great many worlds and all of the other beings it encountered, as they were all far too weak in comparison. With the newfound sense of awareness. the Being grieved. It grieved for its destructive ways, and it grieved for its lost innocence. And so, the Being began to create.

Despite it reaching, in a sense, an adolescent stage in its life, the Being still lacked proper foresight in its actions. Reacting to the grief that it felt, it began to create a countless number of worlds and galaxies, as if to recreate all that it had destroyed and more. Countless years went by as this continued, and the heart of the Being began to heal from the sense of wrongness which had attacked it upon attaining a true sense of awareness. However, the Being was not satisfied, for something seemed missing. In its haste to atone for its previous actions which had devoured nearly all of the cosmos, its actions were just as simplistic as before, just in a different direction. Understanding that both of its previous paths were lacking, the Being made a decision.

Balance was what was necessary, only with this would it be satisfied.

In reaction to this, the Being, with the last of its waning power, birthed a number of new beings, which would grow to satisfy these ideals, eventually becoming known by the inhabitants of their respective worlds as “gods”.

Sevrath choked on the salty water which had invaded his throat. Blearily, he looked around the tattered galley ship, which was already beginning to capsize from the ferocity of the storm’s bombardment. Judging by the fact that he had not drowned, he could only assume that he had not been unconscious for long. Though, with the storm looming overhead, it was too early to tell if this was a blessing or a curse.

Standing on unsteady feet, he was relieved to see that, due to the damage the ship had taken, the chains holding his shackles in place had loosened. It merely took a few seconds of tugging to free them.

He didn’t want to die in chains.

Another blast shook the ship, causing it to shudder in fear, sending wooden splinters flying and allowing water to begin cascading into the hold, washing away the blood of the ship’s inhabitants, most of which had already succumbed to their final slumber. Oddly lacking urgency, Sevrath glanced throughout the hold, before finding what he wanted.

Wading through the ankle-deep water, Sevrath reached the stern of the ship before looking down pitilessly. Below him lay the gaudy man who had bought him from the bandits, his large frame caught underneath some fallen debris. Fear filled his face as he lacked the leverage needed to move the wood off of his body, dooming him to a slow death by drowning.

Hope filled his eyes as Sevrath bent down, causing him to believe that he would be saved. However, that hope was soon washed away, as he only felt a light touch to his waist, and soon saw Sevrath holding his mother’s dagger, which the man had been wearing on his hip.

Desperation grew with each beat of the waves on the ship, with each peal of thunder and crackle of thunder across the night sky. Seeing Sevrath turn around and begin to walk away, leaving him to his fate, he could not help but beg.

“Please, don- don’t leave me here to die!” He cried out, snot dribbling down his chin, falling into the increasingly deep pool of water below.

Sevrath stopped with a sigh, conflicting emotions flashing across his face. He was angry, angry at the fate of his parents and his own fate, angry at the world itself. He had even killed for the first time and knew that he would not even have to dirty his hands to kill this man.

He would only have to wait.

The unceasing waves would batter his body in his stead, would drown him in righteous fury. Yet, despite all of his anger, he was struggling, though not because of some semblance of mercy, of forgiveness towards the man who had bought his life. Instead, he found himself once more entering the murky waters of apathy, his furious rage dying down as quickly as it had erupted. As it was, they were likely all going to die anyway, so it would hardly be detrimental to himself if he saved to man.

Letting loose yet another sigh, Sevrath turned around and slowly slogged his way back to the man. The man’s face, which had before carried dejection and resignation in the face of death, now was filled with a desperate hope and yearning to live.

Sevrath squatted down and grabbed the fallen pillar with both hands. Pulling heavily, he hardly managed to budge the debris before he began to tire. Fixing his balance once more after being pushed due to the rolling gait of the besieged ship, Sevrath once again readied himself to pull the pillar off the man. However this time, he waited. Then he began to pull with all his strength.

Unfortunately, things did not go quite as planned. This time, timed with the pull, a wave came crashing into the ship, adding further momentum to his pull and throwing Sevrath and the debris off the man and into the side of the ship.

His chest burned as the same wooden pillar he was attempting to raise was thrown onto him as he slammed forcefully into the wall due to the wave’s impact. Unable to move due to the pain, and pinned down from the weight of the wood, he could only look towards the man he had just saved with a curiously indifferent gaze, wondering if he would repay the favor. The man only paid a disdainful parting glance before slogging away, not bothering to help Sevrath in return.

Though the man had in effect doomed him, Sevrath could only laugh bitterly in his heart, as he knew that even with the help, there was likely no chance any of those still alive would live to see tomorrow.

He laid his head down against the ship’s wall and closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable end.

The splintering of wood resounded, and he was thrown into darkness.

-\o/-

Resigned to his upcoming death, Sevrath only opened his eyes when he noticed that his heart was still beating. Even more strange was that he felt the wind caressing his face and tousling his hair, carrying with it the scent of pine. It took only moments for him to realize that it was not real. He knew this because he found himself at the edge of the forest near his house outside of Carthal. Rather than being burnt and collapsed, it was in a pristine state, as were the fields and forest nearby. Sudden laughter echoed through his ears as two children, one with black hair, the other with chestnut lockes, raced across the forest fields, heading towards the house. He had only a moment of surprise before they ran right towards him.

And passed through him, unaware of his presence. Longing filled his eyes as he saw a man and woman, younger versions of his parents, open the door of the wooden house, calling out to the pair of unruly children. Soon he was alone again, pain welling up inside him and tears threatening to spill.

A sudden crunch could be heard behind him. Turning around with a startled leap, he was greeted with the view of a strange woman. Not that she had any deformities or otherwise ‘unique’ features. In fact, she was strikingly beautiful, in a nurturing, motherly sort of way, with eyes which seemed to see your flaws and accept them, and a gentle smile which possessed an ethereal quality. No, what was strange about her was that she seemed oddly familiar to Sevrath, though he knew he had never before seen the woman, and likely had for some reason created her within this odd dreamscape.

“Why are you hurting?” The woman asked him, not standing up from the stump she was sitting on.

Sevrath was surprised by the woman’s question, as he saw her as a projection he himself subconsciously created, as everything else in this bizarre world seemed to be. He frowned, feeling his irritation welling up from within him.

“How can I not be sad?” He snapped at the lady, his anger showing in his expression. “My mother and father were slain, gutted at the threshold of my own home! I was captured and sold into slavery. For what! A couple chunks of stupid metal?”

The woman only stared at him with those languid, unblinking eyes. They were filled with the pity one would feel when coming across a wounded animal, bleeding out slowly across the forest floor, with little to no hope of survival. “I did not ask why you were sad.” She stated in that same quiet, compassionate tone, unaffected by his fury.

“Why are you hurting?” She tilted her head to the side in a childlike manner, as if seeing a strange animal.

“Why do you not cry?”

“Why do you not heal?”

Sevrath’s fiery anger sputtered to a sudden stop, as he realized the meanings of her words. Since that fateful day, his anger had always lingered just beneath his skin, ready to bleed through at the slightest provocation. So much so, that the only emotions he had felt in more than just small measures was anger, and the sense of empty apathy that came with its withdrawal.

Even his sadness was affected by this; it was not true sadness. He only felt certain characteristics of sadness and so, knowing that one would feel this way in a situation akin to his own, he had believed it to be thus.

He believed the constant burning fire ready to erupt out from his very being at a moment’s notice to be his grief fighting with the injustice of it all.

He believed the constant ebb and flow of quiet emptiness to be the eventual drain of emotions that would occur from one dealing with a loss, like the inability to weep despite the continuing, burdening feeling of grief.

But did he even once cry?

Did he ever grieve?

Or did he just give up on it all, losing himself in the empty void that had become of his heart, uncaring for what the future may hold, and finding only a momentary, sadistic pleasure in hurting those who he felt had wronged him.

Wronged Him. Never in that line of thinking did it include others. In his anger, in his loss, he had reverted back to a child in his way of thinking. ‘You took away what was Mine; My comfort, My home, My mother, My father, My choices.’

Everything was about him. And nothing was about him. He had been set adrift in the world, caught in the riptide of his regret. And he had allowed it to carry him away, providing only the occasional token resistance to give proof to his continued life. Each rhythmic beat of his heart, each intake of breath, each new day seemed to echo this belief; the belief that he yet lived.

But he was just as dead as his parents who had already departed from this world.

His heart no longer pumped with vigor; it was subdued, as if it were reluctant to continue, but knew naught else to do. His every breath felt like poison; a subtle, undetectable taint which spread through his very being with each passing moment. His days were welcomed with open arms, if only for the fact that it ended his nights spent screaming in the silence of his own mind, and brought him back to the newfound apathy of his waking mind.

He was alive.

But he was no longer living. Every waking moment was spent in a haze, with few moments of clarity to be found within. And like a child, all that he had done in these scant few moments was to lash outward in anger, longing to feel the satisfaction of knowing that he was not the only miserable one.

He looked up at the woman who continued to sit in silence, her clear, limpid eyes filled with compassion, only to see two others shadowing her, their expressions reflecting the same care as the familiar yet unknown woman, the same gaze of compassion that they had followed him with for his entire life. That one look was all it took before his sight was once more was enveloped in a misty haze, this one of true grieving.

He broke.

He lived.

-\o/-

A massive wave swept over Sevrath, pushing him under the turbulent waters once more. The water rushed in, filling his lungs in a furious torrent. He was sent head over heels into the depths once more.

However, now he lacked his previous bitter apathy which had previously allowed him to accept his death. He fought desperately against the constant pounding of the waters above, reaching, clawing for the sky above, for air, for life. Each time he surfaced he felt like he had just fought a battle, lungs aching for air, but finding itself only choking on the salt water. Often he did not even get a chance for respite before he was once again slammed back down under the waves with the casual indifference of a child squashing an ant.

And yet, with his newfound desire to live past the tragedy that had become of his life, he possessed that same resiliency. With every successive wave crashing into him he was battered, drowned, and bruised, but he refused to die.

Even as his vision darkened and his limbs grew weak, he was filled with one thought, one desire.

To live.

-\o/-

Calm waves lapped at his body, sending stinging pains through his body, as if to announce their presence. Blearily, Sevrath opened his eyes, squinting out at the darkness. His head felt like somebody had placed it on an anvil and tried to reshape it with a hammer, and the rest of his body felt no better.

It was a good sign though, for it meant he was somehow still alive. The last thing he remembered was fighting against the massive waves which threatened to pull him into a watery grave. Now, however, he could clearly feel the coarse grains of sand beneath him, shifting with the tides as they plundered the beach. Perhaps, in his desperate attempts to stay alive, he thrashed his way closer and closer to the shoreline, until eventually he was carried the rest of the way to safety.

However it happened, the crux of the matter was that he was safe.

He was alive.

Staggering to his feet after reveling in the moment for a time, he breathed a bit easier when he noticed the slight weight at his side, signifying that he had somehow not lost his mother’s dagger despite succumbing to unconsciousness.

Disorientated from blood loss, he staggered off towards the treeline, fearful of the possibility of him not being the only survivor. He did not want to be identified as a slave, and he currently looked like nothing else. He still had on the light shackles used to chain him to the oars. His clothes were in a disheveled state, and of poor threading. Not to mention there was indication that he had been whipped recently, with scars crisscrossing his back, in addition to the wounds left by his clash with death. Luckily, he was not yet mature enough to start growing facial hair, or it would have only added to his rough appearance.

Tripping his way through the forest, there was little on his mind aside from the need to move. He was beginning to tire, as the days with too little food and too much rowing had done little for his physique. That, in addition to the wounds he had sustained when the ship was being destroyed beyond the Curtain, caused him to begin to become muddle-minded, lacking the initial clarity he possessed upon first waking.

In normal circumstances, Sevrath possesses a practiced grace found in those who spent their lives tracking animals and silently stalking them. Now, he had none of that grace. He stumbled, tripped, fell. His limbs felt weak and his mind muddled. He knew enough, despite his addled state, to know that he was going into shock. His body felt cold, though it had little to do with the rain pouring down on him. He needed somewhere to lick his wounds and time to heal.

The numbness that pervaded his entire being told him that even should he find such a place, he would likely still not survive the night.

In the recent past, this thought would have made little difference to Sevrath, as he had already accepted death, seeing little point in life. But now, he had decided to live. So he had to fight, to continue walking, no matter how dark it seemed.

Sadly, even determination had its limits.

It did not take long before Sevrath found himself crawling, unable to support his weight. A trail of blood marked the path behind him, though even as he inched forward it was being washed away from the heavy downpour.

The darkness finally began to invade his sight, melding with the shadows of the forest. His breathing had long devolved into ragged rasps. It was only the slight smell of blood coming from ahead, nearly masked by the rain, which caused him to crawl onward. He held little hope for his survival at this point, as he had lost too much blood to survive on his own. His one and only hope at this point would be to come across people, and deal with what may come.

After what seemed to be hours of dragging his body inch by inch across the forest floor, he finally came across the source of the blood.

It was a familiar scene to him.

Entrails littered the ground, and blood was spattered across the grass, soaking into the dirt. A pair a wolves lay side by side, bodies mangled beyond recognition.

However, that was not something unusual to find, as animals often killed each other. No, what was both strange and familiar to Sevrath was the way they had been killed. They did not die quietly; or peacefully for that matter. The cuts on their bodies were clearly not made by claw or teeth and seemed to have been made with little intent to kill.

Instead, they were inflicted to make the victim suffer. It was only when they could suffer no more that they were finally allowed to die. It was obviously not the result of a hunt, as their carcasses were left unattended to. This was pure sport.

He was disgusted what humans were capable of. For sport, they tortured these animals to death, tormenting them until their final breath. For money, his own family had been killed and he had been held captive.

Who were the true animals here?

It was only the soft sound of mewling coming from the direction of the corpses that dashed Sevrath out of his sorrowful reverie. He dragged his body over and weakly pushed at the two wolves.

He didn’t like what he saw.

A small wolf pup, clearly only just weaned off his mother’s milk, lay there, covered in wounds. Even the pup had not been spared from the sadistic tendencies of their attackers. However, unlike its parents, the pup was still alive, though like Sevrath it was on the cusp of death.

Deep in the forest, two wheezing, dying breaths could be heard, each echoing the last.

Sevrath could no longer find the strength to move. He lay there dying, staring at the pitiful wolf pup who gazed back with its sorrowful eyes.

“Hah” Sevrath wheezed out, trying to speak. “Pitiful. Aren’t we?” He spoke to his dying companion.

He found himself trying to comfort the wolf, despite knowing that it could not understand him.

“We’re the same, you and I.” He stopped once again, gasping as he tried to catch the breath that seemed just beyond reach. “Both lost our families to the vices of men. We’re like brothers, you see? Like”, his each breath came slower and slower. “Family”

His eyes began to glaze over, oblivious to the light that seemed to emanate outward from him, surrounding the two, reminiscent of the light of the moon.