Chapter Text
Water. Too much for Asael's liking.
Asael was never an expert navigator, especially not over the open sea. They were a blasted artificer, a tinkerer, a 'techie'— not a sailor. The Jackal sitting between the benches in front of them did them no good in helping them keep their thoughts together. The first time they laid their eyes upon it, upon that halo, everything went wrong. First, it was abandoning friends, then, it was abandoning a continent; now, it was abandoning a home.
Abandoning a home in search of what? Asael was more than ready to die and surrender whatever mission this thing had planned for them. Everything but their life had already been stripped from them: their livelihood, their friends, their family, their career— they had nothing.
They stared down at the sea of dark, ravenous waters, their reflection lost in the clouds above. They wanted to jump.
A distant crack of thunder launched Asael out of their thoughts, and the soft beating of rain against their cloak flung them far away from any morbid inkling of an idea. A storm. Of course. When perfect conditions were predicted across the coast, there just had to be a storm. With a scowl and a strong grip on the edge of the boat, they steered the small device of safety a little to the left, watching as the wood barely skimmed the side of a large rock face.
Gloved hands reached up for their hood before the rain could dampen any more of their hair. White strands were dragged out from the now-violent wind, and Asael assumed it just couldn't be helped. Chrome goggles were lowered, and the lenses painted the world a subtle shade of yellow. "You might want to hold, on, stranger," they huffed, moving to glance at the Jackal seated in front of them—
And the Jackal was gone.
Asael didn't have time to process the disappearance before their boat splintered against rock, skin slammed against hungry sea, and salt filled open mouth. Eyes fluttered closed, and with that, consciousness was lost.
The only thing that remained were bubbles: small pockets of air, of breath, of soul.
Emptiness. Void.
Breath entered lungs, and eyes had opened to stars.
So, so many stars— forming a large crown in the darkness; and gods, was it breathtaking.
Eyes had drifted down.
The Land of Light; the desired destination, with the crown seated comfortably in the heavens above it. A sign, a symbol, yet unknown— a warning of what was yet to come, what had already become, and the sins of those in power.
Then it all came in a rush, flashing faster than lightning.
Four leaders, four sides, four offerings to a strange god; a god that followed, a god that watched. The offerings were clutched with reverence, and by eight hands: two scaled, two feathered, two white-furred, and two furred with a rather rustic shade about them. The god simply sat with bowed head, pristine blackened fur and heightened ears glorified by the diamond halo that sat behind it.
The Jackal. Receiving offerings, and to think that a foreign god had chosen to remain beside a lowly tinkerer...
Prayers were uttered beneath clenched teeth and with trembling fingers. They held little faith, little hope, and yet the Jackal bestowed its mercy. A common being would have no knowledge of the significance of this, and yet now Asael understood it perfectly. The gift of immortality, wrapped in care for those with mortal lives.
The gift itself was a mistake.
A presence flitted over the emptiness of observation: cold, enraged, voracious. There was a shaking of the gathering, and a bright light stung the eyes despite their cover. A blast, and a sharp one at that, as both mortal and god braced for the worst. The worst had come, and would continue to grow, until the blast had nearly leveled the continent itself. The crown in the skies grew a sickly fuchsia, affected, afflicted, and now there was no denying it. That presence was the cause.
Bodies. Or perhaps, remnants of them.
The horizon itself seemed to bleed with the victims as Asael stood in the mess that was left after the explosion, breath ragged from shock. It took all of their strength not to regurgitate their very organs at the sight of the massacre, a familiar memory burning within the back of their mind. Boots were stained from the tissue and tendons of those martyred as giants of both flesh and steel roamed in the distance, their only objective to create mortality now that it had been stolen from those deemed undeserving.
A gut-wrenching feeling washed over Asael. They weren't sure what it was or where it came from, but they felt an itch clawing at their throat.
Without any thought, they coughed. It burned, and yet once they started, they couldn't seem to cease. An acidic, metallic taste landed on their tongue as their legs grew weak, buckling under the weight of the body that they carried. Shoulders heaved, their form shook, and their breath grew ragged as they attempted to calm their rapid coughing fit to a stop. It never worked.
It wasn't until their teeth and tongue swam in copper that their system finally surrendered. Their stomach caved, and in one pitiful motion, they let loose all their discomfort, rivulets mingling with the red pools that tainted their clothing. Blood, their blood, yet not that of normal folk. Fuchsia, like that of the offerings, like that of the Jackal's eyes, like that of the impure crown.
Asael's blood finally settled within the murky pool, warping to a dark black color within its depths.
Weary eyes stared. They thought nothing of the change.
Just like the gift, letting one's guard down was a mistake. The puddle grew, tendrils slinking and reforming into a figure taller than the homeland-houses that Asael struggled to remember. Inky-black, much like the Jackal— and a single eye formed through the mass of horns and living ichor. The figure's breaths were damp, yet it had no mouth, and the sheer sight of it made Asael freeze in terror. A singular pupil fixated itself onto the bridge of their nose, dilating in an unsettling, predatory manner.
The air grew cold, and their skin crawled as if maggots were weaved into their veins.
The only thing that Asael could think to do was draw their hardlight pistol, and the expected chill of steel was replaced by the warmth of their garments.
They didn't have their pistol. They couldn't fight and they couldn't simply banish whatever stood in front of them; their gut told them that they didn't have that kind of power. In fact, it may have been quite the opposite. The figure most likely had the power to banish Asael if it wanted to, but they had the feeling that the figure wanted to do a lot more than simply intimidate them.
Asael needed to run, and they did. They didn't dare look back, and they didn't plan to.
Consciousness began to flit between reality and vision, images of robotic titans blurring with murky lakes of carnage. Heavy saltiness crept onto Asael's tongue once more, and fatigue wormed its way into their body. A simple stumble made it seem like they were falling forever, and with one last breath, their eyes had opened to the sea.
The nightmare had lifted, and with it came a flurry of revelations. The boat. The Jackal. The Land of Light. The mission, the purpose. They needed to live.
They didn't hesitate to kick themselves up to the surface, their lungs burning as they were carried by the cusp of the angered tides.