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Working Title: Edge Of Worlds
Warnings: Respect the rating.
Claimer: Edge of Worlds (and its characters, settings and plot) are MINE. Please do not take, distribute, alter, or archive.
Yet despite the few who harbored small fears, all of these beings and more had existed in harmony from Lian-giroth’s beginning, sharing the world and coming to understand one another. All of them, humans and myths alike had escaped from a world that would have destroyed them. Its soul had begun to rot before they had left, turning the hearts of men black and cold with diseases like greed and jealousy. The myths became hunted for their skins and scales, slaughtered so that their bodies might be used in crudely performed false magics.
In a last, nearly futile attempt to free themselves and the few good sons and daughters of Man that existed, the myths gathered in one place on a single day and forged all of their magic together. Their souls had become weak, tired from the constant onslaught of hurt wrought upon them by Man, and their magic alone was barely enough to rend open the thin layer of Time that lay between the phases. They moved as one mind through the breach to Lian-giroth and left behind the world of Earth forever.
In time, Earth had forgotten the myths as if they had never truly existed. They called them stories, fantasies, old wives tales even and so they were forgotten. Man referred to them as they had always been; myths. But they had given the word new meaning, a new falsehood under which to exist. So it was that the myths passed into history for the denizens of Earth and began their existence anew in Lian-giroth.
Despite their new, tranquil lives, there was always a black cloud hanging above all of the residents of Lian-giroth, human and myth alike. Morathi, the eldest of the dragons that had made the original journey to their new world, died only a few days after his arrival. The last he spoke, to a young ramir dragon and a handful of jekla mounts carrying teary eyed riders, was a prophecy that had since put the inhabitants of Lian-giroth in a constant state of dread.
“From Earth to our world will come a girl,” Morathi had rumbled quietly to his last, small audience. “The fate of Lian-giroth will rest in her hands, for her arrival will mean the destruction of our world. Beyond this place on the next phase are things far worse than what we left behind on Earth and she will see the worst of them here. With a song sweet enough to stop breath, the phoenix lyrebirds will herald her arrival and with her, the end of this place.”
Terror had rippled through the community as word spread of his foreboding prediction. Efforts began to completely seal themselves away from the realm of Earth. Thousands of tiny tears between the two worlds were mended and those that could not be were locked so that they could only be opened from Lian-giroth’s side of existence.
However the last of the breaches, the largest of any they had found, could not be closed. It was nearly half a mile long against the ground, a line of shimmering light and dark like an eternal, living embodiment of the Northern Lights of Earth. It snaked across the Muiran plains in slow motion, twisting and rippling as it moved. It was impossible to fix; too large to close, too restless to lock and so they left it as it was.
Karayan, the halfblooded unicorn, took to the plains to guard it. He was blacker than the darkest shadow on a new moon night with eyes the color of cut rubies and fetlocks of flickering, hungry flame; in his mane and tail burned the same fire, proof of his Nightmare mother. A spiral horn of purest obsidian gleamed from the center of his forehead, beautiful at first to those who had never seen him before, terrifying to those who had seen him kill. He guarded the Edge of the Worlds with vicious acuity, ever vigilant for any that should trespass even close to his land.
Every day he ran; his mother had been the finest of Night Mares and his hooves carried him at the speed of dreams across the Muiran Plains. Every day he tore along the length of the Edge of the Worlds, galloping through the meadows along the shifting colors faster than any wind had ever blown. Every day he circled the entirety of the plains, looking for any sign of trespassing or ill intent and every day he found none. He was prepared to face anything, strike down any foe, destroy any Earthen girl who came into his realm through the last open door… but there was nothing.
A thousand, two thousand and more years passed without a sign of the predicted destruction. Nothing came into their world that smelled of evil or taint. People began to doubt, began to wonder if perhaps Morathi had been so old that sickness had taken his mind before he’d spoken the prophecy. The tension amongst the people of Lian-giroth relaxed and slowly dissipated until it seemed as though there was no one left to worry. They had not forgotten Morathi’s words, nor would they ever, but they had learned to live at peace with the knowledge.
At least… most of them had.
The young ramir dragon, Alda, could not allow Morathi’s words to fade. She had been there when he spoke them, watched the glaze of omniscience overtake his eyes as he stiffened to speak. She had heard the words roll off his tongue like liquid, spoken in the most ancient of draconic tongues and she knew in her heart that he had not spoken falsely. The prophecy rang in her ears every day as though she had heard it only minutes ago. She had been the one to bear the news to Karayan, begging him to guard the Muiran Plains where the last of the open breaches remained. He had acquiesced to her pleas only because the words had been Morathi’s and together they’d been the oldest of the myths.
Alda alone, of all the dragons, immersed herself in the humans that lived amongst the myths. They were fond of stories, even false ones, and readily spread her words farther than she could ever have traveled and embedded the fear of the evil, Earthen girl far deeper than she dared hope. Through them the prophecy lived and thrived, carried from culture to culture, forest to sea and back again. She had made them aware, gotten them ready to face the threat when it came.
Or so she’d thought.
When the day came, nearly three thousand years after Morathi’s final words, an almost imperceptible change for which no one was prepared swept the land. Myths with any sort of magic felt the vague flux, felt the curl of new arrival in their bellies. On that day no winds blew and no waves rippled the glassy surface of any water. Life on Lian-giroth stilled, drifting slowly to a stop as the air was filled with a strange noise. It was a noise that had not been heard in millennia- a noise that, for the briefest moment, stopped the breath of all those who heard it.
Everywhere, the phoenix lyrebirds were singing.
