Golden Gauntlet
A shine in the sky. Golden light up high.
The first flash of his current life. A sight never to forget. watching his old hero of the arena. Yearning to be as strong as he was. Yearning to be as potent in his fighting.
He was enthralled, enchanted by its vibrant colors dressed as armor on the man and sought to mimic him, long after his retirement...and disappearance.
The sight of his hero's gauntlet flashed in his mind every day he trained. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually. In the most isolated settlements, alone with himself.
Or, amidst other fighters looking to the flame of fame, adulation, and riches. Be it in barracks, sparring or otherwise, his hand, his mind, both clashed with many adversaries.
In the brightest of days, he would fight.
In…
A song unheard
She sings in a hall filled with the warmth of many. Men, women, monsters, all fitted in pairs, holding each other's hands.
Her voice is as golden as an angel, soothing their ears in the shivering cold of midnight. Silence obscures them, thinking only of her voice, her melody and the faithful that holds their fingers in laces.
The halls gradually empty themselves of people moving with her angelic melody purifying this strength they call love, carrying them against the harrowing winds of winter, unable to assail their slow and warm walk home with promises of returning if only, to hear her sing.
An angel on the stage, a hymn from the heavens, eyes filled with adoration for a man standing at the back, looking back to her, a hand mimicking that of…
Malinita: masked guides
In the waves of a tropical island, the Cerulean peaks. A paradise made manifest by the sudden and impromptu arrival of monsters looking to sink their teeth in the paradisial island, once decked in gold and white.
Many accepted. Others required convincing in the way monsters were overly enthusiastic in. A game in their minds to lull the hesitant.
The rest...hid. Deep in the marrow of the island, far from the surface. The dissidents, mask, and smoke. Mirrors and disappearance.
And they returned...changed, hidden still. Dancing in the mist. The Malinita...
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Their presence_
Strange lights flickering in the night.
Dancing mask wandering the light.
They walk with certain ease into the night. Their faces had exhumed in a mask, white in purpose. T…
Went black and never came back
"Uuhh?" A blank stare afflicts the stance of a shelve lined in purple. Amethyst eyes reflect the very top of it, the seemingly valuable item laid at its peaks. Higher than the fashionable pieces coming from beyond the planet.
Higher than the small humming moon rocks. Higher still than the sliced hide of a passing meteor. Higher even than the gilded pellicle of a swooping meteor. Among dozens of others.
It shines unlike the valuable minerals picked and polished over the years of collection. An attractant to the young infant's gaze, further rushing her miasma horns backward. Youthful the pair is, barely drawing power at the tip, like she is.
This does not stop her from reaching out to the object, shining in a way a beer mug shouldn't ever gl…
Curse breaker
And so, I fall from the ledge of the living,
Down, down to the between,
My crown, broken by steel,
Picked apart by hands,
Hands I've thought communed,
Blind to their deceit,
Bound to their greed,
Their hearts, snared by the share,
Share they've spent,
Share I've still had,
To rob the little hands,
Once I depart in betrayal,
So I part, the last spell from my mind,
A curse from my voice,
For malediction to strike,
All those who surround me...
Years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia. All of them may have passed. None of them may have passed. He could not know what measure of time passed through his eternal sleep, buried in a place hidden to many. A place sealed to those blind to the arcane.
He remembers the sudden influx of life swelling his body that once …