Chapter 1 - Aloryk

My memories are only flashes of pain, echoes of cries and the scent of blood. I was… searching for something. But what I and my companions found was an attack of claws, teeth and limbs so strong, they could crush a Trixikka's skull like it were merely a zokki-bird's egg.

The rancid scent of mimyckah fills my nostrils, and I am aware that I am surrounded by the beasts without me even opening my eyes to see the wretched sight.

Why have they not killed me yet?

They are certainly capable, and have had every opportunity.

The comforting blackness of nothing surrounds my mind when the pain becomes too searing to bear, and, when I do wake, finding myself in a different area of the forest than I had been before, I begin wishing for that blackness again. I do not know how long it has been since the attack. Days? It feels like a lifetime. My left wing is set alight with pain, and the right is not far along behind it. Had they tried to rip them from my shoulders? That is what it feels like.

All I know is that they have taken me, they are moving me from place to place, and they do not want me dead - yet .

I also know that it is the most painful when they carry me. The Goddesses must show me some amount of mercy by allowing my mind to escape into the fold of darkness while my body must endure the constant jostling of uncaring clawed hands.

It is at one stop that I think I see him; the Shadow Wing lurking above, in the tree the mimyckah had dumped me at the base of, my painful limbs sprawled over knotted roots. But then I blink, and he is not there. Perhaps my mind knows my time has come and is getting its fill of tricks in before the inevitable end.

I do keep seeing him, though. He is there, peering out from dark, thorned jungle shrubs, and looming over me as he perches in the gnarled limbs of trees. Even if it is likely that he is merely a trick, I-… a trick . I chuckle but then wheeze with the sharp pain in my ribs. The Shadow Wing I keep seeing does look like Tryk, the only Shadow Wing I have ever seen close up. What an odd way for my mind to play with me on my final day.

My pained, delirious amusement must disturb one of my beastly captors, as a mimyckah breaks off from where they had been gathered around a recent kill, tearing whatever poor animal they caught into shreds. It lumbers closer and kicks me where my wing meets my shoulder, causing a lightning bolt of pain to lance straight through my body. I grunt, curling in on myself, wishing they would just get it over with. I am too weak to fight back.

I screw my eyes shut as shame twins with the throbbing hurt taking over every inch of my body. What kind of Protector am I, if I cannot even protect myself?

I stay on my side in the dirt they dumped me on while I hear another mimyckah approach and apparently communicate with the first through a series of grotesque wheezes and chitters. I had not even known that they could talk to one another, but maybe I am imagining that, too. When they both go back to their meat, I can only guess that the first convinced the other to leave me be.

It's when I open my eyes to stare blankly ahead that I see them; a cluster of mishi flowers sprouting from the base of the tree. Their petals a delicate shade of purple, just like the hair of my dream mate.

My dream mate . If she is waiting for me, I cannot simply accept this deathly fate, can I? Wherever she is, she will need me, and I cannot be in service to her if my spirit is in the realms of The Promised Lands.

I force my lungs to take the deepest of breaths. Everything hurts, and my muscles are weak. But the mimyckah are keeping me alive for some purpose. I can grow used to pain, and I can gain strength.

For her, I will not simply give in. I cannot.

As if the Goddesses themselves had heard my new resolve, a crude life-stone dagger suddenly appears right in front of the mishi flowers, embedding its blade into the ground with a soft ‘thunk' .

Everything stops for a beat or two before my heart speeds up behind my painful ribs as I blink at the gift I have been given. My hand carefully inches toward the weapon as I hold my breath, intending to conceal the blade in the waistband of my loincloth undetected.