Taima's Story

Casren nodded,

"I see. May the Detente be of any assistance to the guarding of Terra? We can handle the Cursed Wood, but can aid elsewhere."

Taima shook her head. "It is not my place to rule over the realm of man," Taima replied. "Nor to lead you in your quests. For decades I led others into battle, trained new generations of champions for a time when I might no longer be here, but my time in this realm ended with my death. It is true that I sounded the call for the Champions to rise once more, but it is in the hands of man to answer that call and to carry that banner on their own. I can't guide you in this capacity."

"In the North," He repeated, "Can you tell me where, specifically?"

"Follow the call," Taima replied.

With that the draconian warrior departed without a word. Raising her halberd overhead, a lightning bolt struck it, and she was abruptly gone, leaving Casren alone in the woods once more.

As sleep retook Taylor, his dreams would be fitful and restless. He staggered his way through a blizzard, each step heavier than the last and his weight left him struggling through the deep snow that was piled high. At his back his heels were dogged by wolves, their low growls and snapping jaws urging him onward, while at his front lay a mountain with the temple at its peak scarcely visible through the sheet of falling snow. The cold was unrelenting and it bit at his skin with vicious intent until it would seem as if the mountain itself would keep him at bay.

At last he fell to his knees in the snow too exhausted to carry onward and the wolves moved in from behind with low menacing snarls, though they kept a wary distance as a figure approached Taylor through the snow. Though humanoid in form, her features were unmistakably draconic in nature, her face the visage of a dragon snout complete with a mouthful of vicious looking fangs and bony protrusions and in place of skin she has scales, crimson red. Her startling visage did little to abate the sense of divinity that permeated her body though. Armored head to foot, she had the look of a warrior, a champion.

For a time she simply stood looking down at Taylor, her eyes holding a weight of judgement within them.

"What is it you seek?" she asked, her voice a deep and throaty growl.

"And yet you have come to the doorstep of Champions."

Taima gaze was unwavering and unrelenting as she looked down upon the kneeling form of Taylor.

"Name your purpose."

At Taylor's back the wolves edged closer, their snarling visages kept at bay only by the looming presence of the draconian warrior.

"You come here a broken man, to a place built upon honor and sacrifice to ask of others what you would run from. What have you to offer in return?"

"And are your sacrifices greater than theirs?" Taima asked, a heavy note of reproach within her words. "Greater so that you would ask others to fight your battles for you when you will no longer stand for yourself?" She shook her head. "You would dishonor these halls."

She watched him for a time, almost as if she were weighing his worth beneath her scrutinizing gaze. After a long moment of silence she spoke once more.

"It is only when you have lost everything, that you have everything to give," Taima replied, "and often the fiercest warriors are those with nothing left to lose, for they have nothing left to fear either. Tell me, what will you give."

"You wallow in the past, and you grieve for what is lost. They are the burden you carry. A burden we all must carry. What will you give?"

She continued to re-iterate the question with forceful intent, her eyes hard and unyielding.

Taima did not respond this time, but rather she simply watched him, waiting.

"I ask what will you give. Not what have you to give. Tell me, what will you give."

Taima reached a hand to lay upon his chest, a glow emanating from it.

"Then I would name you a champion of the light, forever more."

As the glow seeped into his skin, a glowing hand-print would be left in its wake before fading from view. The wolves at his back shied away, their hackles raised as Taima nodded to him.

"Go. You will find allies within the temple."

It appeared in the mists of chaos, dark ebbing at the edges of the vestibule in the Shrine of Shrines. Crumpling to the ground it shook, throwing back it's cloaked head and keening to the night. It wailed for the Crawling Chaos, sliced it's arms through for Sirad, and in a final sob called to Taima for a God to help them. As the figure faded from the cloak, leaving nothing but a blood-soaked rag behind, it couldn't help but wonder why.

Eyes slowly opening, stirring the dust that had settled on the figure in their stillness. Months of dormancy, of dwelling on memories, examining emotions, critical choices. Evaluating the self, and more. Plans, plotting. There had been times of great anger, yet with a creak, the figure rose from the chair in the center of the room. Looking once more at the maps, the documents, pictures plastered to every wall of this barely repaired ruin.

Gaze traveling downward, the watcher perceived his own hands, scaled talons meant for ripping, slashing, and little else. His self examination drew a narrowed look, as what was seen was not as remembered.

He had changed.

A growl sounded from his throat, with a strange gesture a retort's stand and an iron bowl lazily rolled through the air toward him. These he took, settling them on the floor before him. Before he continued, he turned, sweeping out his hands against the floor in either direction. Then he turned. With grating screeches, furrows burrowed into the ground, the motion of their paths twisting to link them together. A moment later, he was complete in this task, creating his circle. In other lives, this would have drawn attention, for as he returned his attention to the vessel before him, he murmured. Glyphs appeared within the scattered threads of the circle, gleaming on the floor with an eerie brilliance.

Blood held power, and so with a twist and minor prick, he rolled a drop of his own into the bowl, directly in its center. Still murmuring the cant of the summoner, he reached for the image and name of the one he sought within his mind, holding it there. A new glyph appeared, this under the bowl's base.

For a moment, he paused, debating his own wisdom in this, the calling of ascended beings. What might the one he was poised to call say, being reminded that a being such as he remained on this plane? Once blood of angel, soul of demon. Now reincarnated, death stolen to place him in the form of rage and cold intellect incarnate. Draconic, and elven.

With a snarl twisting his face he released his power, the final glyph erupting with white light, the arc of lightning striking the base, heat boiling the drop of blood into ash and smoke in an instant. This released power he grasped, sending his resounding call through the planes.

Taima. To me, for I summon you.

With the echoes fading in his mind, Messor, once guardian, harbinger, friend, enemy, waited.

Now not all gods are inclined to appearing at request, but Taima was not as many gods. Unlike those born into their station, or those who took their crowns through the worship of mortals, Taima had earned her place among the gods through her valor and unwavering devotion both to Terra, and to Ahuma, the patron deity of the draconian people.

Perhaps it was Messor's draconic nature that drew Taima to him on this day - though surely one of Taima's station would know that Messor was not born into his current state of being. Perhaps it was echoes of a time past that drew her eye - a time when they stood as enemies. Perhaps it was simply a thread of mortality that still clung to her, and the willingness to answer those who call to her, those who might have need of her. It was perhaps this very same thread of mortality that kept her from attaining true godhood, but one could only speculate into what it was that made a god a god.

As the echoes faded from Messor's mind they were replaced by the deafening crack of thunder as a bolt of lighting struck the observatory. The window shattered beneath the concussive sound and littered the floor with broken glass as an arc of lightning found entry via the open window where it struck the floor within. As the flash of light cleared, a looming warrior knelt in its wake atop the scorched rock with her halberd embedded into the cracked stone.

Though humanoid in form, her features were unmistakably draconic in nature, and her face was the visage of a dragon snout complete with a mouthful of vicious looking fangs and bony protrusions. In place of skin she had scales, crimson red. Her startling visage did little to abate the sense of divinity that permeated her body though. Armored head to foot, she had the look of a warrior, a champion. Raising her gaze she looked upon Messor before pulling her halberd free of the stone floor and rising.

"You who were once foe, why have you called for me?" she asked. Her voice was a deep growl, rough and gravely.

It had been many years since the days of the Orsa of Terminus, many years since she and Messor had stood as enemies - but years oft did little to ease such memories. Taima had played hand in casting Nyx down during the recovery of Elante from her grasp and Messor had stood among those who had played part in Whisper's fall which in turn led to the death of Taima's charge, Dallas Reiger.

His own features were distinctly reptilian, faintly gleaming scales of dull grey armoring his figure in its entire. Tail lashing behind him as he rose, his wings stretched slightly for a moment before settling against his back. Molten red was the hue of his eye as his lips peeled back in a sneer, the sight of a once foe bringing a rise of remembered rage.

For a moment, he merely watched the ascended demigod. Then Messor crossed his arms before him, leaning back on double jointed legs. "Enmity past, and believe me, Taima, that I have suffered enough retribution for what occurred in those days. Not one of my companions is left at my side, so save your breath if you wish to chastise me."

Devoid of emotion, his voice cut a clear tenor, yet there were undercurrents of a growl. He turned for a moment, casting his gaze around the room once again, lips curling back. He had his answer, at last, no help to these.

The remnants of a life lived too long.

Glancing back, his regard was one of a predator. "I called you to simply inform you I am no longer a dormant player. What you deified do for the sake of your balance, I will deal with. Those these mortals can no longer handle are now my prey, and I would warn you to stay out of my way."

Claws unfurling, he gestured about the observatory, his voice rising. "This is all that remains, mere evidence of this life I've lived, and now I possess nothing. Purpose has abandoned me, and so I find purpose."

"It is not for me to chastise or to judge the weight of ones actions in life," Taima told Messor. "Nor is it for me to interfere with the free-will that reigns within Midgard. The time for me to champion Terra has come and gone," she continued. "That mantle was handed on when I passed from this world."

"Your warning falls on deaf ears - for too often the gods do not heed the voices of those within Midgard. This world is for mortals to shape, and though you may not think it, your place is here among these mortals. For all of your power, and your long life, true immortality yet eludes you. It was only by the hand of another that you draw breath once more."

Taima looked to the observatory as Messor gestured to their surroundings, and her eyes seemed to soften to what might have been a smile - had such an expression been possible upon her draconian visage.

"You are mistaken. Purpose does not abandon us, we abandon it. To reclaim it, all one needs do is recall the spirit that lay beneath it all. That spirit is immortal, it is indomitable and it will never die."

There was a rumble of thunder outside as Taima offered an open palm to Messor. Within her scaly hand was nestled an amber stone gripped within the talons of a dragon.

"The Stone of Visions," Taima explained. "It served me well in life, perhaps it too will serve you now."

Taima's offering drew a narrowing of eyes from the hybrid, lips curling back in a sneer. Yet for the show of distate, he stepped closer and reached forth with a claw. Messor paused, however, studying Taima far more closely.

He sensed no animosity, no enmity, yet he knew that he bled anger and darkness like a vapor. His rage seemed less than nothing in the face of this demigod, and it aggravated and confused him all at once. He words he flung away, for he knew otherwise. All those he'd watched over the millennia, and either time had taken them, or they had simply left the guardian behind. He had made of himself a shield, and now that shield was discarded. He had chosen this, a new course.

And he took the Stone anyways. "Visions. So another artifact of seeing the ever changeable future."

Messor snorted, withdrawing his arm to study the stone more closely, turning it in long talons. It brought back memories of the last artifact he had held. And with the memories, came once anew the pain, dulled as it was. He shook his head, sighing. "And how, precisely, will this shiny pebble aid me?"

"The future, the present, and the past," Taima replied. "The stone shows its bearer many things, but how it will aid you in your path is something that even I cannot know," she explained.

As her hand fell away a sense of vertigo hit Messor and the observatory faded from his perception only to be replaced by events already gone and past.

He was standing atop a rooftop and all around him chaos tore through Wing City. Cyborg abominations threw themselves against hastily erected blockades that the defenders of the city used to try and stem the flood, and the roar of engines and the whirring pulse of helicopters filled the air in an effort to lend air-support to the battles below. Overhead a Reverence loomed as for a time anyways even former enemies put aside differences to face a common enemy.

It wasn't this that drew Messor's attention though. It was the sensation of lustful glee that filled him and the words that snaked their way free of his lips.

”Denizens of Ásgarðr, Be wary.”

In those moments, he wasn't just observing the speaker. He was the speaker. As the vision began to fade from his mind's eye his sense of self separated from the speaker atop the roof, and for a moment the face of Hatchet hung before him before that too was gone.

With his senses returned to him, Messor would find himself alone in the observatory with no sign of Taima remaining - and only the stone of visions in hand to suggest she had ever been there at all.

A lip curled upwards, the effect unsettling in what was to Messor a wry smile. "One would almost think the gods dare play the games of manipulation with me. If so..."

Holding a talon at his side as he banished the stone into a pocket dimension wrought by his magicks, electricity roiled in arcs from his palm, molten metal rolling from his scaled hide to stretch in the air. Within seconds, he lifted a heavy, triple bladed scythe in hand, screaming faces smoothly etched into its surface. Whispers kissed the air, their echoing voice the hiss of a serpent.

Malevolence crooned. "Than we ssshall play along. For now."

The whip crack of thunder, the blinding flash of white light, and a detonation ripped apart the repaired interior of the observatory, burning to ash the remnant documents of a life no longer lived. A dwelling became once again a ruin, and the smoking hole in the ceiling was the only testament to the passing of its occupant. As a storm raged into being overhead and began to roll inexorably away, the hybrid watched through eyes of lightning from the skies, grimly pleased to set about the task of bringing to heel a monster.

I come, dear Hatchet, for you. Distract this one for a time, if you will. After all, it makes this game all the more pleasurable.