It’s Farlorian Friday, and time for a special treat. We return to the future to learn about Loxsyn and her first meeting with The Shattering in a familiar Balgomarian city.
Loxsyn reached out with a hand to steady herself against the cold concrete wall of the skyscraper. A group of young women in bright and carefully constructed outfits veered at the last second, passing by and into a nearby doorway. The street was filled with lorries ferrying supplies, directed by a Centurion soldier that whirred and bleated from the speaker on its chest.
She paused, as if to catch her breath. But there was no breath to catch. She was nearing the end. For a millennia or longer, she had danced and lived and threaded through the stages of grief, always knowing, as a Goddess does, that this day would come. There were few left that knew her name.
A middle-aged woman in a shawl herded a group of young children past the Goddess. Each of them stepped carefully around her. It was the last vestige of the power left to her. None could see her, but they all sensed she was there. She was still a higher being, after all.
Who are they to pretend they cannot see her? It made her want to destroy what was left of the humanity she once held so dear. She was here for a reason and her gathering rage granted her strength.
Loxsyn let out a stream of curses as she straightened and brushed off her tattered robes. The faithless scattered, as if pushed back by a perfect sphere growing out from where she stood. The wrath of even an unseen Goddess was nothing to trifle with.
She felt the pull again. There. Nearby. One wore her symbol and whispered her name. So few left and this one was special.
If any could have seen her at that moment, they would have seen the battle play out over her shrivelled but kind features. The yearning to hide away and wait for the end to come, but there was a pull. A need. She was powerless against this call. For to be a God or Goddess is to enter a contract that can not be broken.
Loxsyn turned and straightened, no longer the hunched-over crone. She shouted at the world, not caring that none could hear her words. “You think the Gods are dead. Ha! Soon, soon, my greedy children. Soon you will have your wish. But not today.”
An amulet, her symbol, was moving. A hand wrapped around it and her name upon the woman’s lips.
So close.
The Goddess almost smiled as she turned -
The street around her was suddenly cold and brittle. The sun seemed far away, as though seen through water. So too did the denizens of this lost time, their voices distorted and distant.
A figure stood but fifty paces away, immaculate in a dark, woven suit of gleaming black cloth. Their hands were folded and rested on a cane made of human bones. Two eyes were locked on her — portals to a darkness that consumed the light around them.
They saw her.
She inhaled deeply. They were not of this world, but they were not a God. The air smelled of wrongness.
A voice emerged, a sound like crinkling paper and emptiness. “You are dying.”
Loxsyn snorted in unintentional laughter. “You are bold, stranger.”
The figure nodded and raised a hand, but mechanically, as if having practiced this alien gesture. “I offer you life. More than you have ever known.”
She snorted again. “Such a gift will not suit one such as I and surely comes with too heavy a cost.”
The figure had not moved. It was the stillness of a hunter, with hungry eyes fixed on her.
A new sensation began to run up her spine. Was this fear? She found herself speaking again. “To whom do I speak, strange one?”
“I come in many forms and carry many names. The Beast. The Shattering. The undoing.”
Words of power. These she knew. “I will not ally with you. Begone.”
“One of you will. Each of you goes the way of the Ancient Ones. Lost. Powerless. An ending worse than death.”
There was no need for a response. She simply watched the Beast, waiting to see what would happen. This was unforeseen. It was exhilarating.
And then the symbol flashed again. So close. And she caught a whisper of a voice saying her name. She found herself turning to look at the young woman slipping out of a nearby building, stepping into the passing crowd. Spiky hair. A hand grasping the amulet around her throat.
The Beast had turned as well.
He was here for the woman, not Loxsyn.
This had been foretold. It all came back in a wave: The minotaur. The end of all ends. Darcy. The beautiful half-demon and the strange little fairy.
Loxsyn began to laugh. Real laughter. The laughter of long ago, when the world bloomed around and through her.
She knew what she had to do, the Beast be damned. But first, she was going to find something sweet to eat.