Eternal Beasts

Rescue

She let out a quick breath as she carefully weaved down the street, the sheets of plastic that she had found when she woke up, doing nothing to stop the chill and damp from cutting right through to her skin. But being cold and wet was the last thing she was concerned with.

When she had gone into stasis so very long ago, the young tuathan princess thought she would awaken in the bright warmth of one of her people's great city states: Murias, Falias, Gorias, Findias, maybe even Tara Hill the capital, and her home, brought back to life by the powerful ritual that would unbind her soul from stone and return flesh to her essence. There she would see her fated mate, the Lord of Griffons, with whom she would have a child that would become one of the first of the new griffon riders, and a leader amongst her people.

There should've been music and feasting, dancing and singing. Then, her lord husband would gather her up in his powerful arms and bear her to their wedding bed where he would make her a woman and sire in her fertile womb the future of her people.

Instead, she awoke cold, wet, and naked on a world made gray by a constant storm, in a city that while it appeared to be made out of stone, was no place of the Tuatha Fáil. This place had no soul, no color. There was no music, or joy, as if both had been sucked out of the world. There was no light or warmth, only pain and shadow. And no tuatha, only grim nysim in strange costumes, speaking a language she couldn't understand.

Filled with fear, the princess took hold of several sheets of a strange fabric she found close to where she regained consciousness, and wrapped them as best she could around her body. Then she staggered out towards the street, seeking help. A street filled with strange, lumbering creatures of metal and smoke.

There were nysim everywhere, but none that spoke Westerling, their common tongue. They stared at her as if she was some sort of monster when she approached, some yelling at her, or threatening her with strange-smelling cylinders of putrid magic. Overwhelmed by fear, she ran from them and their magic. Ran down paths of flat stone, ran through the rain, through the alien smells and fetid smoke. Ran until she couldn't run any more, limping on bleeding feet to anywhere but here.

The princess had felt them then: cholim. Shadow Walkers and inquisitori, with a couple of necromancers thrown in for good measure. While wielding the ancient magic of her people, she knew she was no match for them all, even with her full strength. So she fled again, even as they stole the light from the torches high above her to build their magic in secret shadows.

"You're no nysim dog," a voice from in front of her hissed in the twisting words of Qaysho, the cholim language. "But you've seen through our glamor and witnessed our true forms. For that you must die!" Instantly the princess regretted learning the darkling tongue as a youth, her tutors urging a familiarity with the Harbingers' most often used soldier. The very words tore at her soul, lashed at her ears like spine-covered whips.

Looking up, she saw him: a shadow walker captain, gifted with martial abilities and dark battle magic, wearing a long, black coat and holding a longsword in his hand. 'Blessed Maker, if I am to die in this hell,' she desperately prayed. 'Please, let my death be swift! My Lord of Griffons, I am so very sorry, my love that could've been. I failed you. And I failed the Light. Please, forgive me!' And, with a last, staggering step, she slowly sank to her knees.

As the princess bowed her head, trembling with cold and fear, she could see by his shadow the captain raise his weapon for the death blow. Then it was sweeping down.

Half expecting the flash of pain before the darkness of death took her, the princess flinched when the captain's sword came to a halt when it struck another sword instead. Then she was looking up as a large shadow passed before her. A heartbeat later a golden nysim woman was kneeling beside her to throw a heavy blanket over top of the fabric sheets.