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It hurts…
Everything was on fire…
… Cl… Clive… bro… ther… help… help me…
Burning embers of pain wracked him in ways young Joshua could not bear, let alone comprehend.
He knew not how, but he lived. The crushing weight of his injuries the greatest of burdens to the child’s form. And yet, surely he was floating, for he never felt so light.
Drifting… weightless and heavy all at once.
Like flying...
I flew… did I not?
Deep within the Dominant made crater, Joshua’s mangled body rested. The boy’s form bloody and hardly recognizable where it laid, buried in the debris. Crimson sanguine gorged the earth, blood falling in sluggish rivets from his ravaged wounds. Of these innumerable hurts, none were as great as the chasm through his chest, staining his once pale strands, singed clothes and cherubic features a macabre red. His frail frame wracked by the throes of abuses not felt before this night.
…Please… make it… stop… please… make that monster… go away…
I’m… scared…
Far too much, far too fledgling. His innocence dripped away along with the vitalizing draught of his very being. His aether all but spent, barely holding on to the last remaining tethers of life, which were not yet pummeled and ripped away by that hellish creature.
A creature equally as blessed by fire and flame.
The child’s thoughts scattered to the wind, his suffering excruciating.
Once again Joshua felt the ache in his chest, the piercing sharpness of the creatures taloned stab radiating anew. Mercifully, it was not long before the pain became numb. Succumbing to the chill the same way his extremities did.
…brother…
The conflagrations of the dueling Eikons were naught but a forgone, visceral memory. The smoke all that endured in the remains of their chaotic battle, the land ravaged and gouged in its wake. Soon the clouds burst open, and it began to rain, a soothing balm to all agony. The forlorn waters sated the last of the embers as it quenched the parched soil and trees, reducing the smolder to nothing. What remained of Phoenix Gate fell dim.
Rubble and ruin.
Ashes to ashes.
Dark… still… dead…
Cold… so… cold…
All became silent while the boy’s heart slowed to a stutter.
…Clive…
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…
For the briefest of moments, Joshua saw him. His brother, aglow under the twin moons as he gazed upon him benevolently. Clive’s proud smile reached the bejeweled set of his azure eyes, luminous with its own inner fire of familial affection. “My brother the Phoenix… Ruler over life and death…”
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…Clive…
The glow grew in intensity. Before long an inner fire blazed once again within the cavity of his frail chest, encircling Joshua in its roaring, feathery, cocoon. Radiant and all encompassing, the plumes bursting from within. Luminous feathers, bejeweled in crowning glory, the patter of rain vaporizing upon impact.
Ashes to ashes, flecks of aether sparked with life as the boy’s mangled remains knit back together under the swath of the strengthening inferno.
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“Every man has his duty.”
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The young Dominant’s pulse quickened once more as he broke through his fiery shell.
Reborn anew. Whole in spite of it all.
Ashes to ashes he rose, alive and well.
Fighting against his fate.
Joshua breathed once again; his healing lungs filled with life giving oxygen. For a too brief moment, his gleaming azure eyes met the gaze of the twin moons. The stars splendor but briefly pierced through the din of cloud cover, its rays of life and light rested on the child in his baptism of flame. In its glow, his brother smiled upon him.
Joshua lost consciousness soon after, his power spent in the wake of his earned miracle.
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“I’m counting on you, Joshua.”
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In the expanse of the dark recesses of sleep, the child felt strong, unfamiliar arms surround him. Spirited away by those of the Undying, melting into the shadows as the remainder of his wounds continued to heal. Alas, the road to recovery would be a long one.
For their own duty to their one and only Blessed Lord was nigh.
Ashes to ashes, they too rise again.
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"However hard it gets, I'll never let you down..."
“Thank you, Clive. I know you’ll always take care of me.”
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