Tevar

A Snapshot of life during the fall of the Human City
Leina gritted her teeth, refusing to cry out when the arrow struck shoulder, piercing the armor and landing true. The skeleton's permanent, wicked smile taunted her under hollow sockets which drank the light of the nearby fires. It reached over its shoulder and withdrew another arrow from its quiver, setting it to string and taking aim.

Fire was everywhere. Stone and wood alike were swallowed in the inferno. The heat, the smoke, the light: it was difficult to breath, much less fight. How had it come to this, she thought. How had they been at peace the one moment, and falling apart the next?

The senatorial hall crumbled under the weight of its roof, its supports giving way to the hunger of the fires. The air shifted, embers raining down on the shattered streets and broken gardens, followed by a wave of ashes. The skeleton pulled the arrow back into its waiting hands, having lost sight of the injured Leina, who took the opportunity to escape the beast.

She made her way through the alleyways of the city, pushing back tears and gingerly stepping over bodies with faces she recognized. Her sword arm was useless due to the skeleton's lucky shot. Strange sounds followed choking screams and the cries of those who sought their loved ones, all so far off. So distant.

Finally finding more than two stones situated near one another, she leaned against an unbroken house wall and firmly ignored the absence of the other three walls and a ceiling. What went wrong? She slid down the wall's length, watching the skyline. The sun was setting over a thin orange haze, twisted metal and crumbling stone reaching towards the heavens like broken fingers. Child's laughter drifted from far above, emanating from massive alien forms that drifted on the breeze. Their tendrils writhed under them.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. The heat from the fires felt more pronounced that way, but she kept them shut. Her free hand snaked over the arrow, testing it, tugging slightly. This time she did cry out, and left the barbed thing be. It wouldn't do to pass out here, she thought while pushing soot stained tears from her face. She only managed to smudge it.

She reflected on the day with melancholic acceptance of the soon to die. It had started out wondrous, the city alive with the activity. Leina had caught sight of her most secret crushes and coyly considered asking one of them out later in the evening while storing the others in the 'backup' or 'impossible' categories. She had a dozen sappy letters that she had written to herself from each of them, having kept the fantasy of their secret words alive for years now. Now one of those men were dead. The others probably were too.

It wasn't the first time she had been in a situation as dire as this. She survived the Black Dawn, weathered the wars of the Age of Struggles. She had known and met the famous names of Aeonis, some before they had become well known themselves.

She watched, from her vantage point, the tomb of King Farley sink into the ground, the bodies of past royals set to wandering and devour their kin. She watched the tree of Queen Jurai catch fire, its branches and leaves twisting under the heat. Consumed so quickly, after years of dedicated humans protecting it. All gone. In a matter of hours.

Leina buried her head in her arms, her light frame wracked under the long withheld sobs. What had she fought for? She couldn't stop them now, those wicked and malicious tears, each stealing away and sealing past memories as they caught the light of the fires.

Though only minutes had passed, it felt as though it had been an eternity when she was startled by the sound of footsteps. She bit her bottom lip and cautiously looked up, suddenly very cold.

It was him. Tevar. The man who had caused all of this. Darklings retreated from him, as though they feared his passing, and the fires raged all the more around the man. He was the eye of the storm, his face a mask of distant sorrows. She hadn't expected that. She had quietly imagined him cackling, or grinning like a loon. Instead he just seemed to not be present, like he was not a resident of the world on which he tread.

He stopped, not far from her, and tilted his head up to look at the sky. He was wearing thick armor, the one time she had seen him in anything of the sort. It felt old and out of place. He felt old and out of place. And he had not appeared to notice her, sitting so close, praying silently for her heart to stop sounding the part of a war drum.

Tevar stood on that hill with her for long seconds that dragged on into agonizing minutes. Finally, he let his gaze settle back on the city, looking right over her. She froze, not daring even to breath. She had seen a mess of corpses in the capital and somehow knew that the most grizzly examples had not been the product of Darkling violence.

One minute. Two. She breathed back in, inhaling sharply and then slapping her hand over her mouth, wincing while doing so. Shaking, she kept her eyes on him. Did he notice?

He stepped forward, former branches cracking under his weight. He was coming towards her, leisurely.

Oh Creator, Creator, please... She thought, willing the man to go away. Please please please. Don't let him see me. But her prayer fell on deaf ears, for the tall man leaned down beside her. Gray-yellow eyes locked onto her more calm, plain blues. It was like gazing into two dead stars, both of which fed on endless eternities. She tried to say something, but no words came. To her credit, her hand limply went to her side. But she had lost her dagger in the skull of a zombie some time ago, and her sword more recently. She was too battered to fight anyone.

He examined her for a time, cupping her chin in his hand and turning her head to and fro. He only finally broke eye contact when his gaze fell on the arrow. He looked from her face to the black shaft, then back. Eyes locked with hers again, he wrapped his hand around the offending arrow and yanked it free. She found her breath in time to scream, little spots of light exploding in front of her eyes. She felt dizzy, then felt the world grow darker. Try though she might, she could not remain awake. Oblivion took her.



She awoke to the smell of sea air and old fires. She had been surprised to wake at all, but more so to find her clothes and armor neatly stacked beside her on the beach, her wounds dressed and herself under a thick blanket. Behind her was the ocean, as clearly blue and green as she remembered it. Before her was a vast chasm. It took her time to realize that that was where the city had been.

Why was she alive? She pressed her hand to the bandages, wincing. Had he dressed her wounds? Why? After all that carnage, after seeing the monster he was... why?