Celestial Seas Writing Prompts

Sweat glistened on her fur, her chest rising and falling with the force of one that was very much being pushed to their limits. She looked up towards the other with a rising anger in her eyes mixed with a swelling drive of determination. Given her stature she was much, much shorter than the browbird before her, who looked down on her with broad shoulders and magnificent, towering wings that framed his body perfectly. His eyes, which had not moved from her, scanned her with an intensity that seemed to be searching for something in her before he lifted his sword once more. Instead of swinging it towards her he sheathed it and then glanced away.

“We are done.”

His words were short and abrupt, piercing her chest like a physical blow. What determination she had was churning into something more akin to shame, which she pushed down and swallowed up with the heat rising in her chest.

“What do you mean we’re done?!”

The younger brow lifted her sword again, fixing her stance into one that was, for her age, extremely skilled. She appeared to be very experienced with a sword, though her personality left much to be questioned.

“We’re done when I say we’re done!” She continued, her voice rising with a fire that threatened to escape. “You haven’t even shown me that special technique you keep alluding to. Stop treating me like a child, I can handle it!”

“Like a child? You are a child, and you are showing it.” Revarael looked upon her once more, his great, feathery mane of wings rising and falling gently with the breeze. Despite how serious his tone was, there was a certain level of calm surrounding him. “You are not ready for it.”

“Why?!” She huffed, tossing her blade to the ground and crossing her arms. “I’ve done everything you asked of me! I’ve perfected every technique, you’ve even said yourself that I’ve picked this up faster than anyone you’ve trained before! And I’m NOT a child, my crest is fully formed!”

She may not have been a child, but she was still extremely young. Her crest had only solidified roughly ten years ago, and while it signified she was no longer a browlet, she still had much to learn.

“Because I see the look in your eyes,” Rev said calmly, and she could feel a sense of warning in his voice. “And I see what drives you. You are ambitious and passionate, yes. But there is something dark lingering in your heart. A shadow cast that has not been lifted. A shadow that fans your flames. Tell me, little one. Why do you fight? Why do you wish to know what I have to teach?”

This wasn’t the first time she had been asked the question and she sighed, rolling her eyes slightly as she straightened her back.

“Because I want to be the strongest warrior, stronger than even you. Because I want to be able to take on any challenge, down any enemy, and make people respect me! As they should!”

There was a moment of silence between the two as Rev seemed to be waiting for something more, but more never came. She simply looked at him, raising a brow as if waiting to see what he would respond with.

“As I thought. You fight for the wrong reasons. Your vie for power is selfish and consuming. Have you retained nothing from what I taught and shown you through the years?”

His words, true as they might have been, fell on deaf ears. Her ears folded back, brows furrowing as she glared back at her mentor and father figure.

“That’s all you see of me, isn’t it? You always talk about it. This ‘darkness’ inside of me. You’ll always find something I do wrong. I could do everything you want and you still wouldn’t be proud. Well, you know what? I don’t need your secret skill. I’ve learned enough. Maybe I’ve learned all I need to learn from you, since you’re so stuck in your old ways, following your ‘Code’.”

She spit as she mentioned the Palatine Code, malice hot on her breath. While Rev remained quiet, she could tell from his expression that it had struck a nerve.

“But you’ll see. There’s so much for me to learn, maybe not here, but in another world. Something among the stars.”

With that, she turned, pausing only to snatch her starsear cloak off the ground and wrap it over her shoulders before she stormed off. Rev stepped forward, raising a hand and wanting to call her name, but finding his own emotions were bleeding into what he might have said next. So he restrained, stepping back, deciding it would be better to give her some space to cool off before approaching her to talk. Perhaps he had been too hard on her. But how else was she supposed to see what she was becoming? How else could he keep her away from the edge that she moved closer and closer to?

The wind picked up, stirring with whispers that made his fur rise and his spine shudder. While he couldn’t place a finger on what it was, something was giving him the feeling of a bad omen.

                                        ✦        ✦        ✦

The air was thick with smoke, trees cracking and crumbling under the sheer force of the flames fanning outward. Animals had long since fled, grass and dirt singed with only ashes remaining. Embers carried on the wind, twirling and dancing and lighting the air in a dangerously beautiful display. They glittered through the dimmed sky, lasting long enough to spread the hunger of the fire to anything that had not been claimed or to fizzle out. The land, though it could not yell, – for it did not have a voice – cracked and bent in such a way that one could imagine a low moan of pain. This place had been completely destroyed, and no remnant remained to define what it might have been before the fire came.

A powerful stride walked across the clearing, metal clinking with each step and reflecting the light of the flames in beautiful, ominous flickers. Behind them, the sound of something carving through the earth could be heard as a sword was dragged almost carelessly. It reflected the light of the fire, its red, and luminescent blade glowing in the spaces where a dark liquid did not coat its surface. The browbird continued walking for some time, almost leisurely, the sword only being pulled upright and spun around skillfully with one hand when they seemed to be approaching a body lying on the ground.

The form was large, the earth around them indented as if they had landed in that spot with a large amount of force. The fire danced around them in a ring, a few of their feathers caught alight from impact and continued to burn as they appeared unconscious and unable to put them out. A gauntlet lifted slowly, the owner of the sword reaching to rub what remained of their chin as they surveyed the view before them.

“I thought you would put up more of a fight, to be honest…” Her voice was deep and smooth, with a hint of disappointment sprinkled in. “To think I had so much trouble besting you before…”

She continued to stare down, waiting until the body slowly started to move before she gripped her sword again. A smile had started to carve its way onto her face, wicked and wild, and her eyes sparkled with a renewed excitement. It took some time before the other could look upwards, his once proud mane disheveled and many of the wings appearing to be broken. Cuts lined his face, his armor chipped and scuffed, and his eyes stared towards her with a certain pleading expression that she had never seen on his face before. Still, it did nothing to deter her.

“Is that you…?” Revarael called softly, a mixture of exhaustion and sadness gripping his chest as he looked towards his daughter. There had been something inside him that knew that this was her, this… new and undead visage of her, but he had rejected all belief of it until this moment. 

The browbird had not spoken to him until this moment. Everything had been a blur, with how fast it happened. One second he had been on a farm, tending to his crops, and the next the forest and ground itself seemed to come alive with a fire unlike anything he had ever seen before. Then, suddenly, a revenant had stepped out from them, with a lust and hatred burning behind that skull that immediately put him on edge. The fight had started seamlessly and it had lasted for weeks, given the fortitude of both ancient and revenant. But even Revarael knew his limits, and against a being of death, especially one that could heal so easily and did not tire like mortals, he knew he could not win. But even in knowing that, something deep inside of him had refused to let him run. He thought it may have been pride, but now, hearing her voice…

“That’s War to you,” She said coldly, moving forward. Steel claws grabbed his hair, gripping it tightly as she ripped him upwards from the ground and forced him to lift his head further to look at her. “I’m not whoever you knew before. I’m stronger and better, no thanks to you. You made me weak.”

“What’s happened to you…?” Rev whispered, his eyes welling with tears as his face winced at the fierceness of her grip. “Whoever did this… I’ll find them… I’ll make sure they-”

He was cut short as she shook him roughly, the force being enough to shut him up.

“I did this to me,” She hissed, that same liquid coating her sword now starting to stain his feathers as she dug in her talons. “And I don’t need you mourning or pitying me, as you used to do. I don’t need anything from you, really. Except one thing. I need you to prove a point.”

Her words weren’t sinking in, his head spinning as he tried to process everything that was happening. It had been so many years since that fateful day, the day she looked at him with a bitterness that borderlined hate. Since the day she ran off, and when he had gone to find her he found she was nowhere to be found.The day she had run, without a word, and left him blaming and berating himself for not having been a better father to her. And now, here she was, a skinless, haunting and hollow skull staring back at him with a facet only barely resembling his daughter. It was a face he would never forget.

“I’m so sorry…” The tears were running down his cheeks now, the words caught in his throat as all the years of guilt and sorrow began to surface at once. This was his fault, wasn’t it? For her being like this. For her having died, only to return and hunt him down. To make her feel she still had something to prove.

When he began to cry, her smile faltered, twisting into something that looked more like rage.

“STOP. CRYING!” 

She lifted her leg swiftly, kneeing him in the face with enough force for him to reel and fall back to the ground. Her hand was now empty, her grip released and fingers spread as her breathing quickened and her hair erupted into a larger flame. Her crest flickered with a surge of emotion, her other hand gripping the hilt of her sword harder than she had before.

“Stop crying and get up! Get up and fight me! Give me a challenge! What happened to the man so full of himself? So drunk with pride and honor? I didn’t come here to deal with a sniveling husk of a Palatine that used to be revered like a god!”

If Rev had any will to fight left in him, it had drained completely upon the realization of who she was. He remained on the ground, shoulders heaving with the weight of his own tears and failures. This only seemed to upset War more, and in her growing rage she moved forward once again, but this time to stand behind him.

“Let’s get this over quick, then, before you make me barf. I’m here to make sure you never forget who I am. So you never forget my power. The power that I gained without you. I was hoping you’d put up more of a fight, but I see you have nothing left worth my time but this.”

War pulled him up by his hair once more, an inhuman level of strength allowing her to get him almost sitting upright. In front of her was no longer his face, but his pair of beautiful, powerful wings. She knew that, aside from his pride, little meant more to him than the pair of wings on his back. 

What she didn’t know, however, was that to him she mattered more than anything else.

“Keep still and I’ll give you the mercy of making it a clean cut,” War sneered, and Rev hardly moved. He wasn’t focusing enough to make any sense of her words as foreboding as they may have been. Perhaps if he had, he would have done something to stop what would happen next.

Her sword was raised. When it was brought down, it drank deep. 

A silence hung in the air, thick and overwhelming, as if signaling a great tragedy. It was a tragedy that no records would keep, no storytellers would weave, no songs would sing. A tragedy trapped inside of a pair, to eat one wingless Hiros alive until the darkness would whisper his name, and to keep the other on a ruthless path of War.