A Vaati-centric (LoZ) fic created for a Nintendo zine.

Summary: "Seconds. Minutes. Days. Years. How long had it been since he'd been imprisoned here, in this darkness? It has been so long that he has forgotten his own name. But now - now is the time for freedom, for escape and reinstated power."

It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, being bound to a sword in stone. There was a constant state of darkness, of all-consuming shadows, forming a barrier that was seemingly impenetrable. And there he floated, bound to no one and to no thing. Burning gaze focused on nothing in particular, the mage’s thoughts - much like himself - were scattered into bits that he couldn’t seem to fully grasp. A shred of rage here, a thread of loneliness there, but nothing truly comprehensible.

Who was he, truly? He couldn’t even recall his own name.

What he could remember clearly, though, was the vividness of spring buds: a greeness that burned the back of his eyelids. Occasionally other colours would pass his mind’s eye: blue, red, purple. Sharp eyes, four pairs of them, scalding him wherever they dared to look. The telltale aching of his wounds, slashes rending his skin in all the places that truly hurt. Then, without warning, came the blackness that currently enshrouded him.

There it was: another seed of emotion. Yet, unlike the others that he had experienced until now, it coursed through his veins like fire. It was a true feeling, not the tatters of something long gone.

Rage.

The body of his imprisoned self curled in on itself, lips upturning and features contorting into a snarl. His eyes burned brighter, vermillion almost, casting a hazy glow onto his nonexistent surroundings. Hands upturned so that he could stare at the delicate lines that traced their way across his palms, delicate veins rich against his pale skin. Was this all he was? A soul, a ghost, reduced to nothing but a huskless creature?

The rage shook him once more. Faint recollections of power, so great that it had crackled at his fingertips, began to seep back. He had been someone once, someone who had commanded the attention of all those plebeians who dared to look upon his mortal form. Fear, reverence, despair, all inspired by him. There hadn’t been a single creature in the entirety of the land who had even the faintest thought of facing him.

Hadn’t been - then, suddenly there was. Similar to how he couldn’t remember his own name, the question of “who” remained: who had dared to oppose him? Who had it been that shoved him into this eternal misery, this blackness which caged him?

Reminiscing would get him nowhere. As soon as the thoughts came, they left, as all had before them. They slipped away, as if the void had sought to reclaim them. His memory was no good in this state, asides from the vindication that lingered, weighing heavy on his soul.

That was when the crack appeared. For however long he had been subject to staring off into the void, he had come to know the shadows as if they were an extension of himself. This - this was different. Aimlessly the being drifted closer, hand reaching out to tentatively brush against the blemish. Much to his surprise, the black seemed to flake beneath his probing fingers, especially as one of his nails nicked the very edge of the fissure. Beyond laid more white, at the very least more white than he had seen since being sucked into this prison.

Perhaps, perhaps.

A drabble created on a whim. Features original characters based on Greek mythological stories.

Summary: "Being a werewolf is a tricky thing - but being the first werewolf in existence? Now that's a whole puzzle in itself."

The tale of King Lycaon, steadfast ruler of Arcadia and progenitor of many, was a story that countless had heard. Although a man of prestige and honor, respected by his citizens for all that he’d done for them, his status as a mere pitiful mortal meant nothing to the powers above.

Bones cracking, blood spilling. Under his skin they moved, bending to a will that was surely not his own.

Lycaon had felt no remorse for attempting to feed his youngest son to the highest god of all. It was a test of omniscience, to see if Zeus was truly as all-seeing as his followers had believed him to be. He had endured the devotion that had swallowed his people whole, doubting the dominion of the gods all the while. Who was to think that a heavenly bolt would arc down from the sky, or that he would be struck down by Zeus himself?

Fangs bared, sinking deep, drowning the sun in a spray of oil-slick black.

With the kingdom’s trust crumbling around him the once-great king had found solace in the forests, where their old, strange magic wrapped about him like an old friend. At first he had stumbled over brambles and pine needles, unsteady on the large paws that carried him forward. Claws scraping at earth and tattered, dirt-sodden clothes snagging on branches, the ruined beast had thrust himself away from all he had ever known.

The forest exuded a magic different from the gods’, which had been harsh and blinding. There the magic taught him, all-encompassing yet unwilling to allow him to leave its borders for very long. He was always pulled back, by something or another. Boughs seemingly stretching down towards him, the forest told Lycaon of all it could teach him: if he was to come back from the rare ventures outside of its protective circle, he must learn. To keep him coming back, it only released small bits of its knowledge, dangling its secrets above his head.