Chapter Text
It was a land of fire.
Stones and crystals, smokey and glittering in ash and dying sparks, glistening with a sickly, oily glimmer. As if coated in some liquid, flammable and sulphurous. Threatening to ignite at the single touch of the many embers that floated about the swirling, reddish haze of the air. Thick and suffocating.
Great chasms gouged across the earth, deep scars and boiling brands bubbling with flame and fire and furnace. Sparking and snarling and huffing plumes of smoke, a beastly breath of soot and carmine.
And plunging upwards from the depths of the serpentine scars across the blighted, burning land, were the Towers. Unyielding dark fortresses of pitch and obsidian, ghastly winged things screeching about their heights, massive jaws, teeth that threatened to puncture the reddened skies above. Already dripping with bleeding lava flows, venom amongst the fangs.
Had he been flying, he would have seen it. The Towers in all their terrible glory, beautiful and terrible at once. A stark series of obelisks sprouting forth from the burning lands. He might have even marvelled at the structures where he was on the ground, could he see them.
As it was, the winged man was blindfolded. Shackled and chained, his mouth gagged shut with a rag, his wings bound painfully tight behind him as he was dragged across the ground by his wrists.
He had given up fighting some days ago, knowing he had to save his strength for if-
Not if! He reminded himself. When!
-for when he escaped.
His wounds, as they were, were not debilitating. Not if he took care of them once he had his hands freed. Some cuts here and there, a nasty bruise on the back of his skull from when he had been captured. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
The scrapes across his chest and stomach, from being constantly dragged, however, while certainly not life threatening, were going to be a bitch to heal.
He cringed as he yanked on the chains on his wrists, pulling himself, stumbling, to his feet, hoping to relieve the sting of the wounds across his front. Only to be jerked harshly once more, tripping back to the ground as his captor’s hyena-like cackles and hoots echoed around him.
Right, fuck YOU in particular. He hissed, sinking his teeth into the gag in some effort of releasing his frustration. At hiding his fear.
He still didn’t know why they wanted him.
Alive.
The Vile only took captives to their camps, never their home base. And only then, to turn them into more of their own for their army.
They never let their prisoners stay their old selves for this long.
Never mind how they had managed to actually capture him in the first place, the why was far more terrifying to ponder.
What did they want from him?
It couldn’t be that they wanted a war trophy, that wasn’t something useful, though he wouldn’t put it past their leader to at least make an exception now and then.
It seemed more likely he was to be a bargaining chip, or perhaps a means to intel.
Either way meant imprisonment.
Torture.
He grit his teeth as the shackles were yanked, pulling hard on his wrists as he was dragged further across the jagged stone ground, wincing.
He didn’t have much intel, none they would find useful that was.
Hell, he barely knew...actually...what did he know?
He knew his name, he knew what side he was on, he knew his allegiances lay in finding and protecting his Empress.
But...he wasn’t a commander until recently, he had been promoted by...who was he promoted by?
He hadn’t even seen the Empress herself...he knew her, he knew that he had to have known her. But...who...who was she?
This was proving to be more concerning than he initially thought.
Luckily, or rather, unluckily, it wasn’t long before he was no longer being dragged across the harsh rubble of the land. Rather, he was now being dragged across polished stone floors. The oppressive heat of the air had cooled somewhat, and the once constant roaring of fires deep beneath the surface of the earth had grown muffled.
He was inside.
Inside the Towers.
He was in the heart of the Vile.
Before he had a chance to ponder too hard on his situation, he felt numerous clawed hands grasping him. Digging into his shoulders and neck and wings and hair, dragging him to his knees as he kicked at them, trying to shake them off. Only for a single, gnarled hand to grasp the back of his neck, holding him firmly in place as the tiny clawed things tore his blindfold free.
He was in a throne room, circular and dark, illuminated with a deep red series of flames in chalices along the walls. Jagged crystals, smokey and dripping an acrid, dark fluid decorated the ceiling, casting the reddened glow of the flames below into fractals about the polished obsidian floor. Creating the illusion of flecks of blood flickering across the glossy tiles. A high backed, claw-like throne stood in the centre of the room, atop a dias of stairs and red, velvety carpet. Hiding about the shadows of the room, and some not even bothering to hide at all, were creatures of the Vile.
Some small reedy things, other hulking masses. A few humanoid, most some shape of creature undefined by man or fae or beast. Some demonic. Some angelic. All with wicked red eyes and a glimmering red crystal sprouting from somewhere in their bodies. The Vile itself, twisting and forming them into whatever best suited its needs.
And upon the throne, the Vile King.
A tall, deep red, horned being. Like how one would imagine a demon, but far, far larger. More sinister, more hulking, more eerily calm and intelligent than at first he seemed.
“Ah, hello Commander Philza.” he flashed rows upon rows of sharpened, crystalline teeth.
A clawed hand tore the gag from Philza’s mouth, leaving a thin scratch in its wake as he snapped his teeth at the thing, before glaring at the Vile King.
“Evenin', dick head.” he hissed, his tattered wings fluffing in warning. "Or is it noon? Guess you really can't tell time in the Towers."
“So good of you to accept my invitation.” The King ignored the insult.
“Some invitation.” Philza jerked his shoulder, testing the grip of whatever held him. Wincing as more of those tiny clawed hands grasped his hair, wrenching his head up to look straight at the King.
“Coulda’ just sent a fucking letter you shit!” he snarled.
“Ah but I wouldn’t have been assured of your compliance then, now would I?” the Vile King smiled.
“You call this compliance?” Philza seethed as the hands twisted his hair.
“I’d call it a success at the very least.” The King shrugged.
“Dick.” Philza grit his teeth. “What do you want?”
“Well you’re quite quick on the uptake.” the King stood, slowly making his way down the stairs.
He was far taller than Philza had anticipated, having to crane his neck up painfully to maintain a decent glare of spite at the man once he had stopped before him.
“I want information.” the King smiled once again, grasping Philza’s chin with a massive clawed hand. “I want your compliance, I want your allegiance, and I want your Empress.”
“In short, I want Fantasia.”
Philza bristled.
“Good fucking luck mate.” he drew what little bit of saliva he had left in his mouth before spitting it directly into the King’s eye.
He didn’t remember what happened next.
All he knew when he came to, was that he was in a cell, still chained. Though with a growing tender spot on the side of his face and the taste of blood in his mouth.
Miles away, though he could not have known, a green feathered raven landed on the outstretched hand of an armoured, masked man. Bearing a single emerald earring in its mouth. And beneath the boar-skull mask, a pair of glowing golden eyes narrowed in rage.
Even farther still, gazing out with eyes that saw the world and all that lay within it, a woman in a mourning veil felt a tear form in her eye at the sight of the winged man, now imprisoned. Though why, she did not know.
And beyond the borders of what Fantasia knew, a man with sleep ridden eyes, woke from his dream with a start.