19. Cinis

"But how?"

I suppose in some ways, I've gotten everything I've ever wanted in spite of how much I lost. From my prison, I've been freed, brought home to the peace I left without my consent.

Gazing out at the red world all around me, the top of this realm unrecognizable, I'm glad to be in familiar territory. For centuries, I cultivated myself here, becoming a skilled hunter. I can smell the familiar scents of sulfur and goblin… can see the faint outlines of crystals on the hot mountain walls.

I should be thanking the dark elf who sent me here - Aldris. I reach out my hands and touch the boiling, fiery rock walls, and I feel a satisfying sizzle, steam emanating from the snow that falls from my form.

"This is good," I reassure myself.

While it comforts me to be home, it also distresses me to no end. The last remnants of the plane I visited, Protheka, vanish immediately, and I have almost nothing to remind me of my strange trek. That last bit of fallen snow was the only reminder of my time there.

It might as well have been a dream.

Gone are the strange brown and green towering structures called trees. Gone is craftsmanship and the people who can benefit from and appreciate it. Gone are the long stretches of white fields.

Gone are the humans who need my help. Gone are the dark elves who terrorize the realm and plunder for its resources. Gone are the failed experiments that boggle me and haunt me still.

Gone is Serena.

"Perhaps I make do with this turn of fortune," I observe. "It's what I wanted anyway."

No matter how much I accustomed myself to Serena's realm, it was not mine.

I could see the way the human prisoners reacted to me, staring at me with fear while I charred and siphoned their slavers. They were thankful for my help, but they were equally terrified, afraid I might turn against them and devour them the same way I did the elves and beasts.

I remember how she reacted to our mental link - something that was strange to even me. It created so much distrust between us that she was willing to throw her life away to be free of me.

I look at the lava, which falls from the ceiling into the deep magma pits where my kind goes to perish. I used to see beauty in it, but now that I've seen colors and elements beyond my comprehension, it all seems so small and boring to me.

"And it doesn't compare to Serena."

I shake my head sadly, feeling the flames exhale as a mere breath here. She never saw what I saw, and I never quite convinced her.

There was beauty in her peculiarity, but also in her strength. Her skin reminded me of the finest diamonds or quartz, minerals located deep in our caverns, beyond agitated and defensive goblin quarries. Her eyes were more elegant than jade or targonsil, far more intricate than lorem.

And the way she carried herself was pristine. I ponder whether carving stone in her image would be strange. Perhaps I've had an entirely new idea, the likes of which her kind has never seen.

"Kills time, I suppose."

I have nothing but time. I'm not hungry - my appetite has been thrown into turmoil.

For now, I will create. Later, I will hunt.

While I morph the fiery black rock, molding it in the air, I quake the foundations of this realm, which were not built for my craft. First I chisel out a rough figure, remembering the proportions of her figure - the way her hip bump was more pronounced on her left side, and how her back arched just a little bit no matter how she stood.

As I try to fathom the suffering she must be going through, and how she might never forgive me, I emphasize her left brow, which was always raised in confusion and intrigue. I capture her strong jaw as I ponder whether she could have ever forgiven me if I'd just stayed.

"I was wrong," I remind myself. "And now Serena is paying the price."

How could I be so naive?

By the time I'm done, I've formed a living monument to my loneliness and pain.

I hear the familiar fire spout of my approaching kin, as they hover through the air toward me, clearing the distance between us.

"What is that?"

There are three of them gazing strangely at the black stone structure before them. I wish I could have captured her oceanic eyes, or the frilly blonde hair untidily draped over her shoulders.

"A human," I say, turning to both admire and detest my work. "The most beautiful human I ever met."

They look quizzically at me. One of them whom I've known a long time, who once toppled an ogre colony with me, comments on it.

"It's very strange," he says. "What is the point of this?"

"It looks a bit like the creature that was here a while back," another says. "Only that creature had pointy ears and was covered in blue rocks."

It's an odd thing to say, but I shake my head, disregarding it. This one is not known for his good judgment and often invents fanciful tales.

"What are you covered in?" the third one asks. "Where did you get that rock? You look unconventional."

I shake my head, deciding they're not worth my time. But even as I leave, I see them studying the stone structure, before melting it back down into the cliff. It pains me to see something I poured time into being destroyed before my eyes.

Perhaps I can never truly be at peace here, knowing what I know.

"It was strange anyway," I remark, chuckling painfully to myself.

I wonder what Serena would have thought of it. Maybe she would have also thought it was pointless and not worth her time.

I cross the bridge, passing the undisturbed remnants of a lava snake, and question everything I did. Did I fight to stay on Protheka? Did I abandon Serena?

At the slightest hint that Serena would betray me, I ran far away.

The scent of iron has turned putrid, the corpses now burnt severely by the inhospitable environment. I don't know why I look for signs of the portal. I feel nothing amiss in this room.

Whatever gateway had formed to bring me here is long dormant. Not even the faintest hint of magic remains here.

"Maybe I need to make my peace."

I am trapped where I want to be. It's everything I wanted.

My magic doesn't cross realms, bringing me to other worlds and planes. It creates structures that my kind has no use for and devours the souls of unwilling creatures.

Unless I can find another dark elf somewhere - I laugh at the thought, imagining the flesh sizzling off of their bones - I need to accept that there's no getting back.

I nod, leaving the cavern behind me.

Perhaps another mortal will come along and help Serena. She and I built up plenty of goodwill toward her fellow humans.

I have no way of doing anything.

"Now it's time to take what I've learned and help my people."

It's a strange concept. What do my people need?

Traversing the bridge back along the deep chasm, I find remnants of the stone structures left behind. I now recognize the tools placed slightly beside them, but they've conspicuously been moved.

"Probably just the goblins messing with them."

I look back toward the cavern, connecting a piece of knowledge that had never occurred to me.

I remember the outpouring of light and the strange feeling that overtook me. I remember the bodies of Serena's friends, and how much she mourned them when she lost them to the ritual.

The gateway was opened on both sides.

It had to be to form a connection.

"Surely not."

I don't know what I'm looking for when I scan the air, smelling the world around me. I look for signs of movement through the area, but I find nothing, short of the dislocated objects I now know to be tools.

"What are you doing over here? It smells weird."

I recognize the one with the fanciful stories from earlier.

"Oh, yeah," he says, looking at the stone shelters. "We were going to demolish those. No idea why nobody has yet."

"Perhaps you could leave them?"

His confusion is unnoted in his features, but prevalent in his pause.

"They are ugly and pointless. They will be demolished."

I realize that I'm not going to sway him, as he begins to level the structures that so long ago captured my fascination. As simply as a thought, he pushes the black rock back into the cliff, creating unsightly mounds.

"The one I described earlier begged for me to leave this up too," he says.

"The one with the pointy ears?"

He says nothing, but I take his silence as approval.

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

He hovers away, overlooking the vast abyss below me.

"You have been acting strangely since you returned," he says. "You come back, covered in strange rock, and you make and admire pointless structures. Where did you go?"

"To another realm," I say. "I was brought to another world, where many like that one exist, terrorizing creatures like the stone one I created."

"They are made of stone?"

I shake my head.

"Do you know how I can return to that realm?"

He looks up at me in confusion.

"Why would you want to return there?"

I think of Serena's fleeting smile, and how beautiful it was when, even in hardship, I could ignite it.

"I have my reasons."

He gestures for me to come, and I approach, looking out over the vast abyss.

"There is a reason we fear to descend into the fiery pits," he says. "I've heard that in the depths before the elders go to rekindle themselves, you can hear whispers… see lights into another realm, where monsters tread."

I nod, wondering how many of his ‘fanciful stories' are true.

I could chalk this up to nothing but a story. But then I would be abandoning Serena.

And I long to rip open the elves, devouring their essences. I've developed a craving.

"And you think this creature went back that way?"

He studies out into the depths, deep in thought.

"I thought it was strange that he did not burn up," he observes, before turning to look at me. "Will there be more like that one coming here? I did not care for him."

"Not if I can help it."