The Eternal: Prologue
The Eternal
Prologue: The End
I've been around for longer than I care to remember, and as my wife suggests, I'd better get to writing some of it down before senility catches up on me. Somehow, she fails to notice that despite my eon of existence, my mind is as sharp as it ever was, and much sharper than when I was alive in the truest sense of the word... Well, since I really don't have much else better to do, I might as well.
You might expect that my story would start at the beginning of or early in my life. Most of that's boring, really. My story actually starts at my life's end...
Earth: pre-documented history Germany
It was raining. I remember that very clearly. I had even complained about it to my father, Kell, that morning before the battle with the humans. It was a territorial dispute, and it would have been resolved peacefully if it hadn't been for my youngest brother shooting his mouth off and getting into a fight. His hunting party joined in, and both groups had killed a few of each other. Now that blood had been spilled, there would be no peace... Then again, now that I think about it, the humans wouldn't have even needed THAT for an excuse to go to war with us... and I can't exactly blame them. Before my kind were changed by the Creator to be less of a strain on the environment due to our numbers, we were not only much larger, but we also hunted most anything that moved, including humans. While humans do not remember this time, they still have an instinctual fear of our kind. Then again, most earthbound creatures fear anything that flies overhead and is large enough to take it as prey...
I remember the human leader, Huss I think his name was, approached my clan's eyrie, bringing a small retinue of warriors with him, and asked for reparations. My brother had already told Kell his side of the story, and the request was denied, and Huss was bade to leave. He did, but not before doing the strangest thing any human has ever done in a similar situation. He looked at us sorrowfully, and said "I shall weep then, for I had hoped I could forge peace with your clan, Clanhead Kell..." It wasn't until later that day that I understood why he said that.
Our hunters had returned grievously wounded, and it was all the healers could do to keep them alive long enough to report what had happened. A large number of human had attacked them, and even though our scales turn away most blows of their weapons, a poison was on their blades, and it ate right through the unfortunate hunters' scales, spreading through them swiftly, leaving them to die in horrible agony. I think Huss was the only human to understand the horrors of dragonsbane...
My father was enraged at this, and assembled the warriors and the shaman, and told each one to prepare for battle. We assembled, and took to the skies. There were about eighty of us, and while my kind were only slightly larger than the humans, a dragon was still worth ten humans in a fight. We found the camp of Huss' tribe, and descended upon them, setting fire to their huts, killing many in that first pass. We cannot produce blasts of fire constantly, excluding the shaman, who could use their connection with the elements to sling fire and lightning as long as their store of mana held up, so the warriors landed, ready to slaughter. However, the humans rallied, and fired arrows at us. My sisters laughed at this, until those who had been hit started to cry out in agony as the dragonsbane dissolved their scales and began to spread through their bodies. I took a hit in the wing membrane, and thought that I would escape the poison. My father pulled us back, the shaman setting the surrounding forest ablaze, hating every moment of it, covering our retreat. I was fine until we reached our eyrie. I didn't think such a small wound warranted a visit to the already-overworked healers, but as we prepared to relocate, my father realizing we could not fight against the dragonsbane, that plant having caused the death of over sixty of our warriors, and several shaman who could not purge it in time. However, the small hole in my wing the arrow had made ached abominably, and I felt the pain spreading. It was very slow, though, and it wasn't until we had left the eyrie and flown south, away from the coast and towards other, higher mountains, that it really began to worry me. We had just found a new cave complex, and were working on making it habitable, when terrible pain shot through my body, making me feel as though I was burning up, causing spasms to wrack my form. I don't remember much about that, the pain was so great I couldn't think. I remember my father, brothers, and sisters standing around me, a few weeping for me, and my mother, the high shaman, doing her best to heal me, the soft green glow of her healing powers fighting a losing battle against the poison raging within me. Then, I believe I died.
Death isn't as bad as most beings believe. You feel an increasing detachment to your body, and at the end, a feeling of release. However, I wasn't so blessed. I felt the detachment, but no release. My sight went dim, colorless, and hazy. However, after I lost control of my body and all senses of everything but sight, until my father closed my eyes for me, I saw a terrifying figure, a being of shadow, almost as if it was just a hole in space, or something.
I don't know how much time passed after I died. I felt trapped, unable to move on. Not only that, but I was unable to sense anything at all. It was the most terrifying experience I've ever had. Then, something spoke to me, if that's the word I should use to describe it.
It spoke right to my mind, my soul.
I replied, wanting nothing other than to pass on.
This was incredulous! Impossible even! But, I was trapped, and at this thing's mercy.
I was dead and trapped, and desperate. What else would I have said? No, let me pass on? I had things I wanted to do still, like find a mate, raise a family, become the Clanhead, and so on and so forth. So, naturally, I told him yes. The Joining, as the thing called it, was very brief. I felt a tingling spread through my soul, and then a sensation of becoming whole. I instantly knew several things then. I had merged with Terminus, an Eternal, the sentient embodiment of a universal concept. I felt life within me again, spreading through my body, warmth and sensation returning.
I opened my eyes, and screamed. So did my mother and the other shaman who were preparing me for my funeral pyre. My mother recovered first, but still looked at me as though I was some kind of demon. She spoke, fear in her voice.
"F-Fenrin?"
I was recovering, but still panting, trying to take as many breaths as I could. "I-I'm back, mother... I don't know how or why, but I am..." She then rushed forward to crush me in an embrace, tears in her eyes. She looked at me incredulously, though. "But, your scales..."
I looked down at myself and gasped. I, like most of my family and clan, used to be a dark brown in coloration, with coppery spines running down my back with a similarly-colored frill, to aid in balance in flight. Now, I was jet-black, with a large, complex silver runic tattoo on my underside plates, and my frill had become silver with black at the edges, and so had my earflaps. My earspines and back/tail spines remained black, but I no longer had a triangular blade at the end of my tail. I had a scimitar-like blade, almost metallic in appearance, protruding from the top of the end of my tail, with the cutting edge on the inside of the curve, pointing downward should I stand. I had a few ideas as to why I appeared as I did, but kept them to myself. I noticed that a few of the female shaman were looking at me a little to intently for just shock, and I smiled inwardly, very glad to once again be alive.