Of Stars and Shadows
The truth of the world was not always a secret, and the world itself is older than many imagine. In the distant past - so deep in antiquity that the Progenitor of Nations was still young - the children of Wyral were unaware of their curse. But the world remembered, and resented. In the daytime, the sun burned strong enough to sever all shadows, driving the scattered peoples underground. At night, the very stars and moons concealed themselves, leaving all in stumbling blackness. One young ikaya, weary of being so heavily beset, set out to find the powers that forged the world, in order to beg for Their help."All things have an origin. The shattered crown was once whole, the sunken ruins were once pristine above the waves... and even the court of the stars had to first be established, before it could be devoured."
But the Great Wolves rarely remain in one place. The young man wandered the lush lands of the south, but the Silent Duskfall Wolf was nowhere to be found. He scaled the mountains, but the Wise Zephyr Wolf was not in the high winds. He sailed the vast ocean, but the Clever Hoarfrost Wolf had long concealed Herself away. Finally, the young man realised that the Wolves had left Wyral altogether, or dispersed across it. But the world's hostility only grew, and he could not turn back from his mission. If no Wolf could be found in reality, he would have to look beyond it. He descended into the starless sea, searching for anyone who might be able to aid him. Within that abyss, he found a glade of stars, the only gleam of light in the darkness. Nox had been there, the Great Wolf of stars and shadows, but He was gone now. The young man thought to remain in the glade - but the Midnight is no friend to mortals. It and its creations had haunted his steps, craving consumption. It could not overwhelm the Wolf's sacred glade - but it could expose him to the unadorned truth of the world... Nox eventually returned to find the young man still alive, but fading fast. He had held out against the horror of That Which Dreams, yet the ultimate cost of confrontations with the Midnight - the total loss of the self - cannot be avoided. "You are weary," Nox said, His titanic form looming just beyond the glade's mingled starlight and shadows. "I have looked so far to find you..." said the young ikaya. "Is it... too late..." Nox sighed. "The abyss exacts a heavy price upon those who stand against it. Yet the form you must lose may not be your final one." Nox turned His crimson gaze upon the young man, and saw the answer that he had clung to in order to survive the Midnight's cruel revelation: that no matter the curse laid upon mortals, the starlight within them could outshine that darkness. And in reward for this, he was raised high.
"But the stars cannot turn the night sky to day. They will one day be extinguished, and become wandering beasts of consumption..."
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