"You are a curious creature, Young Immortal."
Like a tempered blade, a voice unlike any other cut through reality, piercing and pulling the knight forcefully out of his thoughts. Cloudy eyes cleared, as he stared at the noble being in front of him, not really understanding what was happening, or what was in front of him. He could hardly comprehend the rebirth of Lord Eos, but now that the lone star was in front of him, in the flesh–or fire, rather, the understanding crumbled even further.
Pupils dilated, he stared up at the phoenix, not an expression in his face behind the veil. He did not respond.
Across Eos' great wing span, several amber eyes shifted, their attention going from the forest below to the knight in front of them. There were many details hidden in the frame of the knight that they found particularly interesting, such as the blade linked to the knight's palm. The knight could feel the gazes of an endless number of souls beyond each of the eyes that had brought their attention to him. Moments passed, and the knight registered the words that had shaken, and cut the world–and that they had been addressed to him. Him.
He blanched. How was one supposed to respond to a statement like that? Moments of awkward silence passed before, Lord Eos simply sighed, before turning his attention to somewhere behind him, to Kanaft.
His throat churned visibly as he stared at the raven many times smaller than he was, before finally releasing several caws of varying lengths, pitch, and frequency. That quickly led to a realization he had not considered in the heat of the moment.
'He spoke my dialect.' It was a simple thought that led to a lot of complicated ones. So many, in fact, that the knight decided to execute those thoughts, and instead question the god of these lands about it after he was finished communicating with Kanaft. He had been strangely quiet, and still since he had announced Eos' awakening. Not a rustling of his wings, not a twitch, or a communicated emotion, yet, now, he was speaking animatedly with his father, or, at least he assumed it to be excitedly.
Death was gone. Just as fast as he had appeared in the living plain, Death had left, or, at least the knight assumed he left, after glancing to the left and not seeming an emaciated form playing an instrument begging to be replaced. It left the knight a little bitter. There was much he would like to ask the Guidance, yet he had never been given the opportunity. But he would see him again, the knight was certain of that much. There were more important things to focus on anyways.
Shifting his attention beyond his vicinity, he looked deeply at the shining star in front of him for a long span of moments, leading into minutes passed. Eos, surprisingly, not blinding to stare at. He was made of fire, yes, but as his chocolate eyes consumed the immense form of the god-being, the light radiating off of him did not hurt, nor did it even irritate. It was strange. He would've contemplated it further, but something much more obvious caught his attention.
'My shadow is in front of me'
That was strange. Pivoting, he turned to Kanaft, who was directly behind him, and went still in realization. The eternal night was gone. The vicious currents of gray ash had dissolved. The green-yellow eyes bled for their final time at that very moment.
Thick black globs fell from a single, drifting cloud of ash, yet to be claimed by the Guidance, each droplet of essence containing the wails of a dozen, agonized souls. Until, in a mere moment, every droplet, and every flake of ash, burnt up into nothing. Or at least, he assumed it did. The cloud of ash had already drifted behind Kanaft as he spoke with his father, although now, the bird was stepping around the small island they were on, taking the sights in for the very first time.
Step by step, the knight walked out of Kanaft's shadow, and thereafter found himself in the presence of a fitful warmth, wafting off the distant sun, drowsily slinking down the horizon, leaving the world in a temporary night. It felt nice to be free. The wind seemed to agree too. It had always been eerily still for the majority of his journey through Moyra, yet, in the single instant it took Lord Eos to disperse and destroy the ash, the wind had already slow-danced its way all the way to them. It felt nice on his skin, and through his visor. There may not have been a wispy whisper swaying and spinning around his ear, but he could feel the warmth carrying it in. For a moment, the knight thought of someone else. But reality set back in.
Sighing, the knight turned toward his partner, and tried his best to look through the now stoic expression in the bird single eye he could see. He had mostly tuned them out, yet he did notice when they had stopped speaking, however. He wasn't sure what they had spoken about, but neither seemed to be in bad spirits afterwards, so that was a good sign.
Suddenly, they were descending. Both Kanaft and the knight had not expected it. With a jolt, Kanaft was in the air, cawing madly, while the knight merely jumped a little, at the involuntary movement, but he composed himself within a period of time he considered to be slow. With a rough jerk, the knight was back on the larger, floating rock.
It wasn't barren anymore. Surrounding him was not the slightly familiar, arid, surface dying of thirst, but now was a land covered in wispy green fire. He had seen it before. It was the same fire that had flashed momentarily, before they had entered the canopy. But that had been from a distance. Now that he was looking at it closely, there were a number of oddities about the verdant flames that stretched like a meadow across his entire line of sight. Each blade of green fire emanated not a flame of heat and was instead… slightly cold? The mid-shin-level flames around him radiated the air of a slightly frigid morning, where the sun had yet to arrive high enough in the sky to warm it. Lukewarm. After breathing in air that made his throat dry and back sweaty, the sudden chill was welcome, if not slightly uncomfortable.
At the end of the wide meadow of fire, roots, which had once been young husks turned stinking sludge, not jutted out of the ground, a dime a dozen. They looked strong, or at least strong enough to live on from one of his punches. From the barren roots, stemmed young roots above the ground, from which green fire radiated, creating a forest of brown stems and green fire, among a sea of grass-like fire.
"This is what Moyraka-Djenera–or as you call it, Moyra–was meant to be."
The sudden, emotionless voice descending onto him elicited a flinch from the knight, but, still, however, the knight turned away from his inspection of the distant treeline to face the voice. Lord Eos. He stared down at his crimson-painted armor, unsure if he was worthy of looking at the god, even though he had done so prior. Not all were as lenient as Lady Eurel, after all.
"Raise your head, Young Immortal. There is no need to bow to one such as me. I am merely a messenger."
He straightened after that. The fire beneath him released a wave of warmth in response. Eos didn't waste any time resuming where he had left off. Descending to the island without a sound on impact, he spoke quietly.
"Moyraka-Djenera was a land made for peace. I had always wanted to create life, for that is the calling of all creatures that have lived, yet I am the only of my kind. What you witnessed in your time in this forest was not what I wanted for these lands, but I could do nothing as the region I constructed became a pandemonic warzone." There was no emotion echoing from the phoenix's voice. He was discussing with a god, about the god's land, yet the god didn't seem to care. No, that wasn't right. He cared. He cared deeply, so why did his voice not reflect it?
"Though I am the heart of these lands, I am not the light of it. I pump life into Moyraka-Djenera by simply being here, yet I cannot be the distant stars of the night. I cannot be the sun that watches over the entire realm with a smile, at least not anymore, so I thank you, Young Immortal, for letting me give the light back to my subjects, for the first time in thousands of years. I can give more than just the bare minimum to my land now."
The knight had no response to that. There was a time where a god had slaughtered her people right in front of him, because he had declined her request, and, now, he had done the opposite. He had received a request from a god, not to massacre, but to save; not to give life to Death, but to reunite life with the one who gave it to them. It felt…different. Not a bad difference, just different.
"You are a quiet one. It has been a long time since my last time encompassing the world. It is…beautiful. The trees are older, the grass is greener–the world is…" He trailed off for a moment. His topaz gleamed as he searched for the word.
"Serene; peaceful." The knight hesitated to agree. In his own short experiences since his chains were dissolved, the world was far more vile than it had been, even compared his time.
"Lord Eos…I must disagree with that statement. I have seen a serene world–a land of peace after bloodshed, and these lands are not peaceful. The graveyard held a parasite the size of a Giant, and just beyond the barrier between the living and the dead…the people–the people were mutilated into trees by a mad giant, and–"
"That is enough, Young Immortal." His voice was neutral, as always, but a single inflection of warmth was all it took for the knight to relax his tensed shoulders due to the chitting..
"You fail to recognize one thing,Young Immortal. Those things do not exist anymore. There is still much disease in this world, but what you've done, has made this world dance with happiness. You've made my siblings far away from us rejoice, the very wind gives you warmth. That is why I call this world peaceful. Even though we vassals are one with the world, and holders of the Great One's simple message of love, you have done more for it than us, and in little to no time. The world whispers of the abuse it has been subjugated to, and you have helped it clean its wounds, and begin the process of healing. The world is celebrating, and because of that, it is brighter."
"They celebrate me?"
"Yes. They do not simply celebrate you, though. Young Immortal, the world wishes you to be a vassal, just as I am. It wants you to undergo Apotheosis, and attain godhood in the mortal realm." The knight's range of emotions wasn't large enough to express what it was he was feeling, for even he did not know what he was feeling. He had no reason to not trust what the former celestial body said, but that didn't stop him from doing so. Because he knew himself unworthy. The numinous voice did not stop to let him figure them out, either.
"That is a decision greater than any other. I cannot tell you how to become like me, for I was born into godhood, but I can point you in the direction of one who would know. The closest of the other seven vassals within existence. Five born in divinity, including myself, and the three having apotheosized, through their own separate, arduous journeys." He trailed off at that. The alien mind of a god was mesmerizing to experience. Each eye reflected an emotion too complex for the knight to identity, yet he understood it all the same. Something had changed in the posture of the god. Whether it was mental posture, or a physical one, the knight was not sure, but because the momentary warmth of the green fire had faded, he knew that he was correct. He didn't want to be right.
Kanaft had landed at that point, within the vicinity of both Eos and the knight. The bird, being a creature of Moyra–Moyraka-Djenera, he wasn't sure which he preferred at the moment–was affected by the shift far more than he was. Across the meadow, the lumbering form of Kanaft took step by waddling step backwards, away from his father. It was fear. He could hear the murmurs behind his ear like a distant memory, but they had been drowned out by the voice of the one in question.
Solemnly, the phoenix stared off into a distant sky, watching as his replacement fell asleep on the horizon, but that was not what he was looking at. In fact, the blazing, beautiful visage seemed to only drain at the tangible feelings of the god of fire and rebirth. Though Eos could not express the flame of emotion burning in his soul, all of creation wilted from it. The baneful bunker of mourning lit the world a flame. When the whispering voice of the great god echoed, it was as though the torrential rains of depression were summoned, flooding every being with indigo that came with the callousness of life–or rather, the loss of it.
"I did not think it to be possible anymore. He forbade us–He even…" A crack formed in the overarching, domineering voice of the noble phoenix born from a star–a stretch of disbelief blending and bending into the non-spoken voice, not allowing him to finish the sentence while being mixed perfectly into the cacophony of other emotions that did not tinge the emotionless tone of the Lord of Fire–instead instigating the world around it to meld and churn from it. The pause ended just as fast as it started.
"Yet he still managed it. I sense it. He has died. A god–the god of thorns and agony–he has died. A god has died." Eos' terrible realization came with a tremor in his regal voice that left the soil dry, and the sky bleak. The realm may have known–but in the wake of a creature greater than it acknowledging the blow–old wounds that had not even closed themselves, began to reopen–and they festered. The knight could do nothing but stare inconsequentially at the melancholia Eos unknowingly reflected onto the world.
"The youngest of us–even younger than you–Young Immortal who has saved me–the god of blue thoughts in all but name has fallen to them. Rest well, Youngest. I sensed your rise–but I missed your fall. I celebrated your Apotheosis with you, yet I was absent when you needed me most. There is no apology in or out of existence that could properly rest my consciousness," a brittle bitterness tinged the elegiac atmosphere. The bitterness of a noble king staring down an abandoned throne–wondering if he too will abandon his throne someday. The blue reddened, and the purple emotion spilling over the stark black brewing pot, only turned a deeper shade as the saturnine grew deeper.
"May the Great One welcome you to our true home with warm arms, and usher you into the throne which was carved specifically for you–with the very-same reason you abandoned your inherited throne standing aside you once again–smiling with gracious somberility," clouds of impenetrable, black smoke clouded the beautiful sunset as Eos wept without tears.
"May you rest well, friend… brother.
"I hope you find some paradise, Reticent Abbdon-Anu."