LAUCAN

Time for them to see you for what you are. Time for them to see what awaits us if we continue down this path of endless apathy. If we proceed, this is what we will be — what we will turn into. And I will not accept this, I refuse this. We will either listen to the song, or we will die quiet into the night — and I refuse to accept any other fate but one where we go down fighting. Traye's screams echoed through his ears while he sat in the topbox of the Volaris Opera House. Lights shone against the barrier above his head, weakening even with his multitudes of long nights down in the bowels with the icehearts and Hayvala's weakening state with the added stress the Lords and Court put on her, unable to rise out of bed to come and witness the truth. Though a pair of her Blizzard Sentinels stood at the ready with their own shifted nervousness with the task he set their companions, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Time's promise shivered the blood of kings, all the way to the once and future king. Dancers flew from aerial silks, though the meaning within their songs weighed heavier with each passing moment. The other Lords sat in their own private boxes with their personal entourages, but Laucan drove his fingers into his throne and chewed on the remains of his own apathy when the sun grew too far out of reach when his wings melted when he tried to grab onto it.

So he buried deep into the graves of two families, and dragged out the contagion. The main singer led the steps with their own dance, the graceful jumps made them appear to be gliding instead of falling. Snow swirled around them with their movements, but he held on tight to his new prisoner, with no intent to let it see the light of the beautiful day, to sup on the tundra fields beneath the Frozen Wastes. On the final note, the cheers raised into the endless night, against the howl of the blizzard. It roared, with fury and vengeance, and he tasted its hate when he left his throne when the ovation quieted with his appearance. The rune beneath him glowed when he stepped onto the rising platform with the Sentinels. With a snap of his fingers, his knees quaked when it lowered himself onto the level of the common populace.

Some stared at him in shock, for what king dared to lower himself among the rabble? Some gave him angry, but subdued expressions — for who was he to try and understand their suffering? Laucan ignored the near silent jeers of judgment, and sought absolution for his crimes and the sin formed in metal and blood-soaked pearls. Yuvens words dogged his every step and pushed him for the reality left to him. The troupe slid out of his way, heads bowed low in reverence, as if he was Evyriaz — as if he was the once and future king, the Snow Prince. The aberration among their set, with the prop sword stuck in icestone until the final act, their final crescendo, he squared his shoulders and faced who he sought to protect. Each one cowered, some held the fires of defiance back. Neven Lotayrin created a ripple, a golden truth — a tenet of their people he could no longer ignore.

Listen. Feel. Sing.

Xe'tena, Zet'alna.

Navei'al.

"Sing!" the voice screamed out in his heart.

Fear chewed at its melody, a lump in his throat when the crowd whispered amongst themselves. The son of a tyrant, the weak king who relied on Outsiders, who failed to finish off their greatest enemies who bore the family curse.

"Sing!"

Blackened smiles formed in the mist, the low groan of the Derelict horde filled his ears, a wave of sickness to kill all in the path.

"Sing!" He slid his lips between his teeth and tried to find his courage instead of terror. "Sing! Listen to the song in the tundra! Feel its love through the terror, through the darkest nights — and sing!" He shut his eyes away from the truth, but he found himself in front of a star-speckled mirror. Underneath his fur boots, a sea of pitch, sprinkled with lights lapped across his view. "Grow a spine!" Yuven screeched in his ears. "Grow a spine and do what you must! Do what you should've done! End this farce!" Laucan forced himself to look into the mirror, and accept what was in front of him.

Little horns, half-grown, smashed into the mirror, over and over. From the execution platform so far above, he witnessed the rebirth of their song in a man they decried as a traitor to their legacy. Neven Lotayrin. Each charge into the mirror repeated the images. Yuven Traye, in shackles, splattered with black blood which dripped down his hands and filled the stonework below. Sky-blue irides stared at him with resentment, with frustration. An echo of his soul when it bared its teeth, unable to shatter his own cell. Feathers fluffed out along the scales of the beast, its teeth tightened and it gave a weak charge. Numb pinpricks drove into his knees at time's stillness, a minute no more than a moment. Turns, no more than seconds. It filled his lungs with rot, and he pushed his hand into his face to stem his tears at Mother's humming lullaby. I can't do this. He trembled in terror, the apathy splitting him in half. I can't do this, why am I doing this? Why am I even bothering? They won't listen to me! I could shove a Derelict in their faces and they'd still rather bury themselves! Maybe we'd deserve this! Maybe we should! Tears started to slip down his face with the sob he couldn't keep quiet. "Misara..." Nothing more than a child after all while she told him stories of the tundra sun, the beautiful fields of flowers, outlasting the cold seasons for a single warm one.

I don't want to die.

His shadow swallowed Yuven, but his violet fields glared up at him in defiance — and he was the one behind bars.

A single crack tore through the mirror when the young wyvern gave its last strong charge with an echoed scream. It tore through his ears, and he opened his eyes with a single breath of life. "I've come with a decree!" he snapped through the held silence. "A warning that you must listen to. Heed my words and the truth I bring if you want to save yourselves and your families." He looked over at the entrance to the backstage. "Bring it." He tightened his fists when one of the Sentinels rushed to obey his command. As another Sentinel dragged a cage behind him and slammed it down onto the stage, the rocking chorus drew back. Ice chakram in his hand, he sliced the latch, heavily fortified with wards, already wasting away from the depraved being within. Clocks ticked in his ears when he formed a twine from his glyph, then snapped it into the formless, bubbly mass. His Sentinels readied their glaives when he pulled it out. It squelched and left the scent of death in the air when one of the boils along its mass popped. SOme people scrunched their noses. Others stared, shocked into silence when Laucan held the twine, and his Sentinels hovered by the Derelict, who's ever changing red eyes took in its feast. Unkillable.

And still... we know nothing but how to freeze.

Laucan held on tight to the twine while his time glyphs kept the creature in a temporary noose. It let out a low moan through its broken jaw, the song dissonant and unnatural in his ears. "What I have here... is a Derelict!" Laucan tore through the fear it eeked off its being. Through the apathy it put into him instead. "It is a being that knows no surrender, that knows not how to stop its rampages! All it knows how to do is feast upon the bones of Magickae! Its hunger is insatiable, but we cannot kill it through normal means!" He nodded at the Sentinels, and they drove their glaives into the beast. It screeched, the noise shook the air when they dug deeper, but it simply split tendrils off its body and sent tiny leashes of crimson, though his own glyphs stopped its vengeance from killing anyone else. "The only people who know how to destroy these things, to send them back to where they came from, are the Storm Wardens." He bristled when some people widened their eyes, waking up from their apathy. "Yes, the same Storm Wardens who some of you watched as a vocal few captured one, and tortured him upon the steps of Evyriaz!" The injustice seared into his heart, but he continued, pulling the stabbed Derelict forward, though it dug its claws in, he refused to bend to its whims. 

"Look at it!" he snapped. "If you don't want to die from this thing, you have to run." He held on tight to the twine when it started to slide itself closer to the crowd, its tongue lolling out. "Because I can assure you... there's more of it right in the heart of our city. Run," he pleaded for the hope of his people. "Swallow your pride and run. Take gryphling carriages, do whatever you must to survive, but if we are to live... we need to stop cutting ourselves off from the reality in front of us." He drove his boot into the spine of the Derelict, hearing the crunch of accursed bone when it slid its red eyes towards him. "I say this not just as your king, but as a fellow Naveeran... we're not helpless yet. Head to the Pale Pass, or head to the edges of our lands to where the terrain turns to ice which covers oceans. I promise you, there will be help waiting, but preserve your lives for once!"

Some people shifted on their feet, others remained frozen, staring at the beast of their Obscura hells. "Try and kill it then," he barked to the Sentinels. Over and over, they drove their glaives deeper. The relentless assault caused the Derelict to scream. Each strike caused the icesteel to rust at the edges, to blunt the blades until they cracked apart. One whistled, and Sentinels awaiting on the wings threw fresh glaives to them. Over and over, its depravity heightened, its hunger unending. Another Sentinel tossed a spare, steel plate gauntlet in front of it. In an instant, its maw snapped open, and its pale tendril of a tongue snapped forward with its own set of teeth. It latched onto the gauntlet, causing the closest people to retreat when it pulled the empty armor into its jaw. It bit down with a crack. In an instant, the forged metal rusted, bent to its force. More teeth replaced the cracked ones as it growled, snarled, let out a sickening rattle in its throat.

Tension rose in the air, some started to back up into their neighbours. Words turned into quiet gasps.

Just run!

"Evacuate the place," Laucan ordered another waiting Sentinel. "Make sure no one gets trampled. Patrol the streets until I've settled evacuation plans for the city, but if people try to flee ahead of time... don't stop them, just make sure they have compasses and supplies. I want some of you to also try and drive a fast route to the pale pass and the old harbours." He fought with the twine when the Derelict broke its own bones, to contort itself for freedom, but he sent another whisper of ice downwards, and it froze once again. He tugged it for the cage again as people started to retreat from the area, though the silence deafened him. With it back in the cage, he slammed the bars down and sent every ward he knew into the lock. "You know where to put it, the deepest Ice Gaol we have. Let it freeze... it won't keep it, but we can stall it... until this city is empty, and it has nothing to eat."

"Your Wyvern Grace, what about..." one of the Sentinels whispered.

Laucan shook his head, not wanting the questions to crack into his fear. "We've got no choice," he said, trying not to try with the upsurge of his fear. "It's just a palace. It's just buildings... we can rebuild. We have before... but to do that, we must live." His gaze went to the Lord's boxes, their quick absence noted. Of course, because who wants to die? But I refuse to believe that all my people are as self-serving as we are. The twine in his hands faded away, and the Sentinels added their own wards to the cage, with the largest Sentinel taking the cage into his hands once again. A child surrounded by adults with Turns of experience. The smallest among them. He dragged fingers against his feathers, their own high, fully grown, the plumage of pale colours blending in with the constant flurry. He squeezed his own, and tried not to whimper.

Clumps of fluffy white down stuck between his fingers.