Eudaemonia
you – dee – moan – ee - ah
(Version 2)

AN - this is a reworking of my original 'Eudaemonia' story. Don't read that one, read this one!

Prologue
It seemed as if the whole world was on fire. Great arms of orange and gold reached up from the charred ground, clinging to the dried-out plants and withered flowers that sprouted from cracks in the barren landscape. All around creatures roared and screamed as bodies flew everywhere, torn wings beating against a smoke-filled sky as the last survivors tried to make their escape. Bullets ripped through the air, pulling down the few that had made it, pinning to them to the ground as Lifesblood poured from their open chests. Men dressed in black stormed through the primitive dwellings, showing no mercy to anything with a heartbeat. Angered and unforgiving, the humans made their way through the dusty land and formed ranks, glancing anxiously around them as they awaited their next orders.

Before them, a man stood in a crumbling doorway, a dying creatures moans audible from somewhere behind him. He was taller than the others, and on his chest was pinned a medal from a long-since forgotten war. He spoke confidently, black visor pulled up so that he could meet the gaze of all stood before him. “Well done, men,” He said. Several of the soldiers noticed The Thing grasped within his hands, and stood in awe of his bravery in touching it. “The abominations are dead. We may now return home, with no fears for our own safety or that of our families.”

A great cheer rose from within the men. Weapons were held above their heads; helmets tossed and then retrieved. The bodies of their fallen were gathered (though they were few) and the artefacts that were to be taken with them were selected from the carnage. Each soldier congratulated the man to his left before falling neatly into line and beginning the journey back to the nearby shore.

As the humans left the ruined village behind, returning to their makeshift rafts upon which they sailed back towards their own faraway land, the screams of that dying creature finally ceased.

Through the crumbling doorway before which the commanding officer stood had been a home. It was not grand by any man’s standards, but it was far finer than any other home that had been destroyed that day. Tapestries woven from grass and blankets spun from dust lay ruined upon the trampled ground. The heat of the humans’ fury could still be felt on the air, and the smell of their weapons was strong and disgusting. On the floor, near a carved monolith, lay the body of one of the creatures. It was like no human, nor anything else that had ever been seen on Earth; its eyes were lidless, covered with a delicate film that was quickly gathering dust. Grey shards protruded from a gaping maw in its face, and hooked claws hung from limbs that seemed impossibly long for its body. Though strange and frightening, there was no denying the thing’s beauty; intricate drapes of gossamer adorned its body and a stone of radiant grey hung from its neck. It was perhaps no match for human royalty, but this creature had lived with dignity nonetheless. Now dead, it lay forever staring upwards as its Lifesblood trickled slowly from the holes in its face and neck.

The man who had killed the creature shot another before leaving with his comrades; his victim was a smaller monster, whose grey shard-teeth had not yet grown in. A child, the man had thought, and for a second there was hesitation. The creature seemed not to be afraid as it knelt by its mother, small wings protruding from neat slits in its back. A low guttural moan made its way from the back of its throat as the thing began to weep. The horror of the animal before him seized the man, and his bullet took the child down. Remembering his orders, he lifted the creature from its place on the floor and left the chamber, sparing not another thought for the murder he had committed. As he turned, his eyes did not pass over the other lesser-creatures, crouched behind the carved monolith. They remained there long after he had gone, cramped and afraid of the awful monsters’ return, their unblinking eyes fixed upon the body that belonged to their mother.

Outside the dwelling, scores of other corpses lay scattered in the dust. Some were not whole, parts of the creatures scattered by the dust and the men’s’ ferocious weapons. One part belonged to the lesser-creatures’ father, his hooked claws torn from webbed hands and feet.

They did not know he was dead, but would find out before the night was through.

The faraway star was lying low against the horizon before the three lesser-creatures dared to venture out of their hiding place. The eldest passed quickly by his mother’s corpse to gaze upon the damage outside, his eyes meeting with a thousand travesties. The other two remained inside with the body, crying in their foreign tongue, desperately trying to keep the Lifesblood from leaving her. Their wretched faces and awful wailing could not bring her back to them, and so they clung to her battered wings instead, digging their blunt claws into the small of her back.

The eldest creature listened to them, and felt pity flood his being. His oval eyes fell upon the smouldering remains of a tree nearby. He knelt by it, and observed the fire the humans had planted dance. He brought a nearby ashen branch to it, and watched the flame as it fed upon the sun-starved wood. He promised to never let the flame die, in memory of the travesties that had struck them that day. Rising to his scabbed feet, the creature turned his back on the flame and passed back through the crumbling doorway to be with his brothers. Inside he sat with them, eyes fixed on the dirtied robe draped round his mother.

From the wreckage that had once been the town of Veres, a handful of survivors began to crawl. The Lifesblood had not yet left them, and they staggered gracelessly towards the dwelling of their leader, collapsing by the flame that they had watched the eldest child feed. They waited there for instruction, guidance, and comfort – anything that might ease the pain of what they had witnessed. Crying out for their lost loved ones, they buried their faces in the dust, huddling together by the flame as darkness fell finally across the land. It would feel like an age before the faraway star rose again, and when it did they would no retribution in its rays.