Canary Glow.

Chapter 1

Summary: Gods are not constant.   Like most, they have a beginning - even if not an end.

 Chapter: 1.

 Chapter trigger warnings: N/A.

 Author's notes: This is set in a fictional world that I created myself, featuring just a handful of my own cast! This is just one story I plan to make with these characters, as I figured the best place to start in any narrative is the beginning. This book will delve into the creation of Huron as we know it today, and the forbidden friendship between a mortal man and an immortal, divine creature.

"What in the blazes is that?!"

Wide green eyes followed the burning arc in the sky intensely, watching its fluorescent trail shimmer as it rocketed towards the ground; neon yellow, crackling like electricity, and showing no signs of slowing down.

The speed of that thing... it's incomprehensible! It looks like it's going to crash!

Aldierno watched as his surroundings lit up, a fierce sheen of gold spreading across the treetops as the comet continued to fall. In a display of primitive fear, the man flung himself onto the ground, arms shielding his head, his face buried into the dirt as he braced for its impact. It was far too late to run away.  Impossible, really, with how close it was.

The sound of it hitting the ground was unlike anything he'd ever heard– a crash of thunder so loud that his hands abandoned his head in favour of his ears. Even then, the noise shook his brain, rattled thoughts around like loose change, and the searing light that followed like a shockwave had his eyes screwing shut, his face pressed tightly into the mud.

Please, please just let me die quickly.
Whatever this thing is, let it kill me in a single moment.

Time crawled by like a snail, his body on fire with the knowledge that he would soon be engulfed by pain.

                                                                            But it never came.

After what felt like a lifetime, Aldierno raised his head and squinted. The woodland was dark once more, an eerie silence smothering him like a quilt. What just happened? What did I see? What was that?

His questions were rewarded with a sudden beam of light shooting high into the sky, breaking the clouds and vanishing into the abyssal black above him. It was hard to look at, blinding even, but he persisted in trying– in trying to make sense of anything that he'd witnessed thus far.

When his world dimmed once more, Aldierno found it in him to stand up. Aside from mild disorientation and a fiercely fast heartbeat, he had left the situation unscathed. Knees knocked as he straightened up, heightened senses latching onto anything they could. The whistling wind; the breeze weaving through the trees; the dull scratch of dirt beneath his bare feet.

He only realised he'd taken a step forward when he found himself closer to the treeline than before.

What are you doing? Turn around. Go back to the house, where it's safe.

... but the uncertainty of what had transpired was tantalising. Perhaps it was the rush of bravado one experienced after surviving something fearsome, or the curiosity that was allegedly responsible for the death of so many cats, but he felt intrigued– no, compelled– to press on.

"To hell with it,"   he muttered through clenched teeth, stalking into the undergrowth before he had the chance to change his mind. He couldn't explain it, that cloying need to go forward, but it raged in his head like a war cry. It saw him filing through the thicket, braving the sharp bite of brambles and the pervasive scratch of nettles without a single complaint. Even so, the deeper into the dark he went, the more foolish he began to feel.

Then light.

Dim, at first. A pale yellow in the distance, like the very first rays of morn, before it opened up into a pool of liquid sunshine. As he emerged into a clearing, Aldeirno found his gaze falling to the ground, gaze snagged by an unfamiliar crackle. It was teeming with some sort of current, grass combed over, frayed ends burnt and fizzling. Slowly, he inched a toe towards the lip of the undergrowth– then quickly recoiled when he received a sharp static shock.

How is that possible?  Grass burns.   I use it in fires all the time.

A murky shape in the near distance caught his attention. It looked weathered and strange, composed of old rock and something all too cosmic. It was simultaneously shimmery and plain, and through a crack did Aldeirno think he saw something molten. It oozed like lava, its canary glow both beautiful and foreboding.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, he hovered at the entrance to the clearing for several minutes. Every so often, he stuck his foot out, then retracted it once more, not keen on the idea of getting shocked again.

You're never going to find out what the hell that thing is if you don't press on.
Maybe I don't need to know.
Really?

It should have been no surprise to him that he found himself darting across the clearing without much regard for his sense. A dozen sharp static shocks wrangled the soles of his feet, his teeth grit as he skidded to a halt in front of the strange stone, surprised by how quickly he'd grown a tolerance to the current. It was a force of nature, of that he was certain, but it seemed residual at most. If it wasn't, I'd absolutely have been fried. He dropped to his knees, eyes all but bulbous as he raised a trembling hand to touch the foreign mass in front of him.

It fell apart before he could.

Like an egg after a bird had emerged from it, its granite walls crumbled to the ground, forming a small pile of rubble beside what could only be described as a ball of light. Aldierno tilted his head, persistent in trying to grasp exactly what he was seeing.

There was something dark swimming in the centre of the golden glow; a nondescript shape that seemed suspended by invisible string. Slowly, it began to unfurl, and from the light did Aldierno witness a body come into view. Then arms, then legs, slowly followed by a vague head shape. The thing was tiny, an inky black blot on a white sheet, and only when two pinprick lights appeared on what he could only assume was its face did the man think to fall back.

He landed gracelessly on his rear, the corners of his vision swimming.

"Wh-What are you?!"   he exclaimed, voice wobbling meekly.  He was numb to the current, heart pounding in his chest as he witnessed the shape flicker like static.

Then, akin to a phoenix, it rose.

He watched the indiscernible mass float upwards, arms fanning weightlessly outwards. It slowly morphed into a more determined shape, its limbs like fine pencil streaks, two tall ears sprouting atop its round head, before it expelled a final pulse of light. As the energy faded, Aldeirno's surroundings began to darken once more– and then the body fell. The mysterious creature hit the ground with a resounding thup, its still mass resembling a ragdoll that had been hurriedly discarded by a rambunctious child.

What is this thing...?  Aldierno asked himself as he crawled his way closer. He could taste his pulse, felt it flickering across his tongue like lightning– and the effect only worsened as he stood up, his tall, lanky frame dwarfing his unknown visitor in moments. Despite their clear difference in size, the man felt tiny in its presence. There was something about it that radiated power, power he'd had yet to witness with his own eyes.

Gingerly, he nudged the body with the very tips of his toes.   "Hello...?"

His persistence, though valiant, elicited no response.

The longer he stared, the deeper the strange thought sank into him. He felt it first in his mind, then in his soul– a streak of nonsense so woefully insane that he came to fear it: I need to take it with me. He couldn't describe the desire unfurling in his brain like a bad omen; the compulsion to pick the thing up and take it back home, nurse it back to health somehow. It wasn't as if he knew much about playing nurse, nor did he feel he was overly altruistic as a person. Though he would have liked to exercise his good will from time to time, the simple fact was that his land was uncharted, godless. It didn't pay well to appear weak.

But this poor thing... it looks so small, and so defenceless, and it'll probably get eaten if I leave it alone.

Your self-preservation is piss-poor, Aldierno.  How have you lasted this long?

"... damn it,"   he muttered, scooping the creature up and drawing it close to his chest. Though it was unconscious, he felt a strong surge of life spilling from it. The longer he held it, the deeper the pit of dread in his stomach felt– as if he'd touched something forbidden, opened his mind to a knowledge that should remain unknown.

He clung to it regardless.