Broken Chains

When Puck first felt the claws raking across his back, he screamed in pain but knew the injury was manageable.

When the claws entered his body the second time though, just after he successfully knocked out one of his enemies, he knew this time the injury could prove lethal.

With a scream of pain, Puck stumbled to the side and fell, barely avoiding landing on his belly again, where he felt pain unlike any before. The pain wasn’t the greatest he had ever felt, but somehow this wound signaled that it could be enough to do him in.

Lying on his back, gasping and holding his belly while trying to keep his blood inside his body, Puck, with a hazy vision, saw his remaining enemy lazily walk towards him while licking the blood off his claws.

Finally seeing the attacker who had come from behind, Puck recognized Karak. Karak... Puck knew he was part of the group that always attacked him, but somehow, Puck had never taken much notice of him compared to the others.

As the other Gremlin stood above him with gleaming eyes, Puck thought that perhaps he now saw his true enemy for the first time.

Feeling the blood loss starting to take its toll, Puck thought he could hear voices, and his awareness of the outside world slowly shrank. Even then, Puck could only watch, dumbstruck and in horror, as Karak went over to Typhon and kneeled next to him. At first, Puck thought the Gremlin would try to wake his companion, but when Karak slowly closed his hands around the throat of his old companion and started choking him, Puck could only blink while his thoughts ground to a halt.

This, this, it was... Puck didn’t know what to think or feel or do. He was drifting away, and it felt as if the darkness was finally closing in on him, but still, there was something that wouldn’t go away.

There was this annoying voice in the back of his head that simply wouldn’t stop screaming at him. Finally trying to understand what it wanted to tell him, Puck at first couldn’t make out what it was saying, but as he tried to grasp the details, a light bulb went off in his remaining consciousness.

It was Zephyrian. When Puck had fallen, he had landed on the sword still strapped to his back. In the fight, Puck hadn’t tried to use the sword, as it was much too heavy for him to swing effectively, but now it was his last hope.

Finally understanding what it was saying, Puck knew what he had to do. Just before his consciousness would completely leave his body, he sent a final mental response to the sword.

“I accept.”

There was a great gnarly tree standing on a beautiful hillside.

Bountiful grass grew all over the hill, and the sun shone while birds chirped in the branches of the tree.

Near the tree, an old human man sat on the ground, seemingly meditating while holding his face intro the sun. His robes were simple and unadorned, and his face was old and wrinkly, but there was something otherworldly about him, something one couldn’t quite grasp easily.

Across his lap lay something silver, it shone in the sun, as if greeting the sun with its own glaring brilliance.

As a ray fell on its gleaming edge though, it seemed like the drums of war were suddenly echoing through the tranquil landscape, heralding a different future and a different age to come.

In the middle of a mountain range seemingly surpassing space and being unrestrained by the flow of time, a lonely fortress stood in a valley undisturbed for time immemorial.

This fortress, neither too big nor too impressive, seemed as old as the mountain range itself.

In the middle of its empty court, the icy wind ruffled through the hair of a lonely girl dancing through the fortress.

This girl, as otherworldly as the place she inhabited, never slowed or stopped as she danced through the snow with her partner.

The whistling edge of her partner cutting through the air was the only thing to be heard.

A great troll stood atop a great rock, looking over a field of thousands upon thousands of the dead as it mourned its fallen brothers.

The fight had been long and hard, and he was the only survivor.

Great gouts of blood flowed out of the many wounds on his massive body, running down the rock to join the ocean of blood below.

Slowly lifting his great paw, the troll roared into the night as he held up the spoils of his victory. The gesture was a challenge seemingly at the heavens themselves as the weapon pointed upwards.

Glory awaited him.

Puck’s consciousness was whisked from one vision to another.

He saw creatures he’d never seen before, both great and small. He saw visions of what he thought to be the sky and unimaginable wonders.

But in company with the wonders, sights of horrors and despair rocked his mind.

The visions were relentless, and the only constant was Zephyrian, who sometimes seemed to be the weapon of heroes, sometimes those of villains, and sometimes simply the spoil of war or something entirely else.

As vision after vision passed by, Puck was slowly losing himself to the memories, starting to forget who he was and the situation he had been in.

But then, finally, it stopped.

Remaining was the vision of a normal and unimpressive sword drifting through the boundless void towards him.

As if by instinct, Puck reached out with his imaginary hand, and as he felt it meet the hilt of the surprisingly solid sword, he was suddenly ripped out of the vision and tumbled back into his body back in the now and yet.

Glory and death awaited.