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“I think it’s time we brought it to us.”
Ludinus raised his hand and drew upon the power of the Beacon. Dunamantic energy swirled in the air, burning through his veins as he pushed his will upon the movement of time itself. In his peripheral, he could see everyone else frozen as he felt seconds speed up into minutes. Minutes into hours and just as Ludinus watched Ruidus slowly drift into it’s apex, he heard the sound of glass shattering and everything went white.
****
Ludinus opened his eyes to a endless starry expanse. He was lying on his back in a similarly endless sea of ink black water that was solid to the touch. He had been here once before. The elf tried to rise to his feet but then doubled over in pain….no not pain but overcome with the urge to transform. Into what?
“Your true self.” whispered a voice inside his mind.
Ludinus let out a growl, deeper and more animalistic than ever as he scanned the space for the source of the voice. But he could see nothing. He felt his glamour crack, but there was no fear nor shame within the elf’s eyes. Truthfully he quite agreed with the voice.
“Very well.” Ludinus murmured, as he let one hand turn into razor sharp long claws. He ripped the glamour from his body and smiled, teeth all too sharp for a normal elf. The popping and breaking of bones and joints echoed throughout the expanse. Ludinus’s limb elongated and his skin grew rough, bark-like on one side, dark blue feathers sprouted on the other. Wings burst from his back, featherless, bones stitched together by cerulean arcana and dripping blood from its manifestation. He dropped onto all fours, no longer able to stand on two. His eyes turned from its original deep blue into all black sclera.
“Good. Now we can have a proper chat.”
Sitting in front of the creature that was Ludinus Da’leth was a child. A young elf with raven black hair and bright blue eyes. Ludinus tilted his head inquisitively as he looked at the visage of his younger self. If his memory wasn’t what it was, he would have thought it to be a stranger.
“We could have been so much more, you know.”
Ludinus cackled. A deep and dark sound. “Perhaps in another life. But no. No we are meant for this.”
The boy sighed. “She does not control us as much as you think she does.”
“Of course not. Do you really think I would let her? She has no right. None of them do.”
“Then I am right. We could be something else.”
Ludinus’s claws flexed. “You don’t get it. How could you? Aeor hasn’t even fallen yet for you. You haven’t learned anything yet.”
The boy circled Ludinus, calm in the presence of the beast. Ludinus never took his eyes off of the child. He had only entered the space of the beacon, of raw dunamancy once. It had showed him infinite versions of himself, past, future, differing branches of reality. They all shared one thing in common. The ascension of their mother. The abandonment of the only family they had. He didn’t know if that was meant to be comforting or if one day he would shatter under the knowledge that in every reality, she never stays.
“Then teach me. If you believe this is our best future. Our best outcome. Then teach me what I need to know to get here.”
Ludinus narrowed his eyes. His heightened senses felt a shift in the air. Subtle but there was something about this child that was raising his hackles. But if it was a lesson he wanted, well Ludinus was all too happy to play teacher. In another life, perhaps he would have been happy as that.
“The lesson, child, is that to live you must become more. To survive, to accomplish the goal, you have to break yourself to achieve it. It’s not a sacrifice. It is what must be done. To save this world, my world, your world, it must be done. You must defy what fate has for you.”
It was slient for a beat and then the boy laughed. Not a childish giggle but a laugh of someone, something wiser.
“Is that not what ‘Mother’ thought too?”
Ludinus snarled. Rage bubbling up at the comparison. The boy smiled and shook his head.
“You’re so alike, you know. Even as this monstrous thing that you are now, you still managed to emulate her.”
Ludinus lunged forward, fangs snapping at the boy’s throat. The child simply smiled and manifested five feet away.
“She defied fate, did she not? She did it for you, no?”
A near hysteric laugh broke free from Ludinus. He was circling the boy now, like a wolf on the hunt.
“I told you I would never let her influence my fate. She certainly tried her best, I’ll give her that. Blowing up an entire city was an intriguing choice to tell me my fate was to die anyway.”
The boy paused at that, while Ludinus continued ranting.
“Of course, it wasn’t a personal thing. But one would think a mother would have more qualms about destroying our home, my home. That’s when I learned, that’s when I broke away.”
Ludinus flexed his claws once more, readying another lunge. He knew what this child was. The Luxon. It wanted knowledge and he was willing to allow it to learn.
“You said I could be more? I AM MORE! I tore myself free from those threads of hers, of theirs. When I refused to die that day. And every day since.” Ludinus growled, fangs bared with every word, “And now I will let the rest of the world join me in freedom. You cannot stop me.”
The boy’s form shimmered and changed into a being of pure light. They had no eyes but Ludinus could feel their gaze. They had no malice, no mockery, no judgement. Just a sad curiosity.
“I had no intention of stopping you, _______”
Ludinus bristled at the sound of his old name.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, in this form at least. I did hope I could change your mind.” The Luxon said with a sigh.
The world shook and Ludinus tensed waiting for what was coming. His spell was almost complete. The Luxon drifted forward, unafraid.
“You could have been so much more, Ludinus Da’leth.”
And the world fell away.
****
Ludinus pulled his now withered hand away with a hiss of pain. As he shook away the conversation with the Luxon away from his mind, his gaze flicked up to the bloody red moon. To Predathos. And for a brief moment he swore he saw a raven soaring across the sky.
No. He really couldn’t be anything more than this.