.

.

.

The natural world breathes around us at all times like a great living thing, an enormous body that revolves around man and Kin. The clouds breathe, the earth feels, the rivers cry. So goes the philosophy of the spirit-speakers: the ones who are touched by the “wind,” as they call it.

The way these chosen ones explain, the wind speaks words only they can hear. The earth rumbles warnings, the water bubbles with knowledge, the fire crackles in laughter. While some, in the earlier ages of our world, could not believe them, the Speakers are clearly set apart from other mortals. They are chosen.

With each breath they take, the magic of the world fills their bodies and enhances them, granting incredible strength. They listen to the sky and the sea, hearing whispers and guidance. The world can even protect them directly- a gust of air knocking away a flying arrow, an outstretched branch catching an unseen blade.

But these spirit-speakers, who are revered as great heroes, warriors, and sages, all hear the same message throughout the world. They have spoken it for generations, as relayed by the forests, the oceans, and the storms.

It is always worded differently, always warned by a different Speaker. But it has never changed.

The world, through the Speakers, issues a warning.

No scholar delving through any library, not even the great depths of Edelgrand, have ever found a corresponding text or warning. Not even our archives can grasp a hint of its meaning, beyond the obvious, apocalyptic meaning.

As such, it is a prophecy that is taken heed of as one of the most legendary and well known, but one that most have come to a common conclusion about. It is a vague warning of something still to come, far, far in the future.

.

.

.

Dust whisked feather-light above the stone, blown from silent wind and descending from cloudfronts above, swirling towards those lone two travelers.

They leaned forward, bracing themselves against it.

Although buffeting them without stopping, tinging their cloaks and skin a dull red identical to the ground, they did not stop. Both had energy filling their bodies that was newly restored after the previous night, the boy walking ahead with a fire in his eyes.

The man, however, was fueled by something entirely different. That scowl constantly adorned his face, and his legs moved steadily, yet a bitter kind of pain had dug itself into his bones. A stitch cut at his sides, and his breath came with a heaviness normally unseen. He could easily feel the laborious pulse of his heart.

His back hunched, he looked steadfastly towards the back of the boy walking ahead.

“Rush. Stop.”

Immediately, the boy turned to his companion, a shadow of worry crossing over his face at the surprising urgency within the man’s voice.

“Yeah?”

“I need to tell you something.”

Through heavy breaths forced outward beneath trembling lips, the man looked as if he would collapse within a single moment. Noticing that struggle, the boy walked forwards quickly, grabbing the taller of the two with steadying hands.

“Whoa! What’s going on? Are you hurt?”

“...Yes, but that’s not it.”

“-What do you mean? Don’t we still have some Laeia? We can use that!”

“No, I don’t need that. Trust me… it’s not that bad, just a stitch.”

“Did you use too much force while fighting the Wind Spirit?”

“...Not exactly- well, actually, that’s completely correct. But, Rush, listen to me. I need to speak.”

“Um, right.”

The old man’s face was like the stone beneath their feet as he stared at the hesitant boy in front of him, uncertain hands still attempting to steady the man’s trembling body. Though his eyes were dark, shadowed by long nights of troubled sleep, they held an unflinching fire inside of them that gave the man a presence extending far beyond his seemingly weak body.

The boy was quietly glad to see that trait, unlike most of the others, had stayed with the man.

But when the man opened his mouth to speak, to tell the boy whatever secret he had been hiding for the past few days, something happened to that fire within his eyes. Something that, whatever it was, shocked the boy to his core.

“Ah- No, never mind, kid. We need to keep going… we need to reach Cliffside today.”

The body couldn’t speak, and so they began walking again.

Wordlessly, the two travelers continued alongside the edge of the abyss, their destination nearly within sight, though both could only feel deep pits of dread within their chests.

As the day went on, their pace never slowed, yet the air around the two began to feel heavier, even with the light of the filtered sky only continuing to grow brighter. The darkness of the Pit just below receded.

If there was any sort of comfort felt by either of the travelers, the light of the day provided it; a safety only possible when outside of the darkness, away from whatever could be lurking only just behind the black curtain under the feet.

But even the rays of daylight could not lift their spirits, or the fact that with each step they took, each rise they topped and every dust cloud they passed through, the pair continued to grow closer to their final goal. Without the stress of a potential attack, those tense frames and slumped shoulders should have disappeared.

Eventually, though, the hours began to pass, that familiar haze of travel beginning to fill the boy’s mind. Caused by the endless repetition of the stone ridge, he easily slipped into those blank thoughts, almost comparable to sleeping on his feet.

In that thoughtless time, while the boy only focused on breathing, on constant steps clapping against stone earth, on the exertion of his sore legs, the light of the day began to darken once again.

His eyes widened as he looked upwards, an almost accusatory sort of expression on his face as his eyebrows drew inward from confusion.

“...Wait, weren’t we going to get there today?”

He almost turned to face the man next to him, though hesitated for more than a moment before resolving himself.

The man, however, had no such surprise on his face, besides a shadow passing one again across his features, a confirmation of reality.

“-Probably walking too slowly. We’ll be fine, we still have at least an hour.”

The boy nodded quietly and began walking again, face dropped to scour the red stone ground.

Something stopped him, though. Something stopped him from looking downwards, accepting that empty statement.

A desperate chill, like a whisper in his ear. A notion that if he didn’t say something- do something- then he would never find the courage.

So the boy opened his mouth, resolving himself for a hateful thing- the most hateful thing in the world- betraying the one that gave you life.

The boy grit his teeth, glaring a burning hole into the back of the man, already walking ahead, already continuing this damned journey.

A sudden rush of fear came over him, he bit back the words already forming, an invisible hand coming to clutch at his throat.

But he didn’t let his cowardice hold him back any longer.

He spoke up.

“Alvo, I don’t think this is right.”

“What?”

“Is- is Cliffside… is it really there? Do you really think we’ll find it?”

“...”

A silence filled the air.

A silence that was more than enough of an answer for the boy.

In a moment, he felt as if the world had turned itself over. Like he could look up at the sky, and with a thought, fall upwards, away from the dust and the earth.

He saw the cliff face, just a dozen feet away, just a few steps from them, and the darkness that lurked just beneath it.

He felt the rumbling of his heart against his ribcage; a drumbeat hammered against the cage of his body.

The sweat of his skin beneath the heat of his cloak, mixing with the dust and the ash of the air. The clammy cold of his sunken cheeks.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

And before anything else could be said, a distant humming started to reach the boy’s ears.

The wind, already quiet and still, dropped away entirely.

In the same moment, the large clouds of rusted red dust all fell to the ground.

Although surrounding them before and clouding their sight, as the dust fell from the air in that single, unnatural movement, they could suddenly see far, far to the distance, revealing dull rock all the way to the mountains.

“Alvo-”

“I don’t know.”

The man, finding his voice in the sudden presence of danger, drew a small crossbow from within the mounds of his cloak, a bolt fashioned from dark metal already strung into the mechanical contraption.

The faces of each traveler had lost any emotion visible from that small conversation. Both had turned to look out into the vastness of the abyss, straining their eyes to see farther than sight.

A shrill sound cut through the air, penetrating the still air like a needle through a blister. A hundred saws scratching through iron. A thousand tortured voices.

The air buzzed, rattling the earth beneath their feet as the dust receded instantly, blown away from the two travelers as if it was a living thing.

The man gasped, unheard beneath the noise even to himself, eyes wide, unnatural fear spiking in his body. As it was, he immediately turned to face the abyss beyond, grabbing a small pouch from his waist.

The boy, however, let out a cry of pain as his ears burst with pain, bubbling up in bloody shock, his hands coming up to cover his hearing. He fell backwards, hitting the ground hard enough to throw any air out of his lungs.

The sound continued on, a shriek of rage and hostility, at the world and itself.

Cursing soundlessly, the man saw the creature flying out of the darkness below the cliffside.

Its scales were a dull gray, as if carved straight from rock, yet somehow metallic in tone, gleaming even in the dim light of the clouded day, rays of the light reflected off of dozens of small spikes, sending beams piercing outwards to the ground below.

Two sets of wings adorned its back, each one coated in those metallic stone scales and beating in sync, letting the monster soar through the air and out of the darkness below, as if it had been born of that murky shadow for this one moment.

With its enormous maw opened, the four-winged monster soared just over the heads of the two travelers and landed onto the stone ground before them, opposite the side of the Abyss, cornering the humans between the edge and itself.

Six separate eyes covered its face, each one the dullest of blacks, the giant creature held its mouth still splayed open from the scream, rows of sharp, steel gray teeth visible inside. Its overall size easily dwarfed the two humans, reaching twenty feet at the shoulders, the rest of the body twice as long as it was tall.

For a moment, they stared at the creature as one, while the monster bared its teeth and crouched with a violent, cat-like grace, each of those six terrible eyes radiating such hostility as to nearly cause them both to faint.

Everything was still, the shock that hammered throughout their bodies too violent to sustain, their minds almost blank. The ring of that terrible scream echoing throughout the area as the enormous monster stared at its prey.

But before even a second had passed, the man opened his mouth, words hissed nearly silent from behind brutally clenched teeth.

“It’s a Khollh. If we can-”

The enormous monster threw itself forward, long and thick claws digging through the ground without any resistance, leaving deep furrows through the stone even as it let out a second scream filled with terrible fury.

Without hesitation, the man threw himself around the boy next to him without a sound, shielding the both of them with his cloak and tackling his companion backwards.

The ground fell out from beneath them.

Without another second to register what had truly happened, both travelers toppled off the edge of the world.

.

.

.