The East PacificBoard

"Great!" Apple grins. "Let's get back to it, then."

There was work to do in their new world. Snow says obligingly. Zerachiel's children had his spirit -- the Golden Flame -- but they were mortal. They needed shelter, food, and time to grow. Iaoth sprouted the stone Trees to hold their nests and grow the gargoyles that would keep them safe. -Gargoyles aren't alive the same way you and I are, you see. They are . . . extensions of Iaoth, avatars of her will; they can be strengthened with offerings of blood and milk, but they will not die without it. They cannot be possessed by demons. They cannot be tricked, because they do not think; they cannot despair, because they do not feel. This makes them very strong and very limited.

Regardless. They established a perimeter. Within, we and the Serpents learned what had come before us (Anauel spoke through dolphins to explain it to us). Outside, the twins looked for the other peoples of Valsora; when they found such wanderers, they delivered Iaoth's message. 'I will give you a home and protect you from evil.' Valsora was nearly overrun with demons at that time, so of course many people accepted the invitation. The Congregation grew.

But.

The dragon sighs, shuffling her wings (squeezing Apple gently with her tail). As I said, Zerachiel's spirit is the Golden Flame. Aphaeleon's, too. This Flame is the essence of the protector. It drives us to fight for others. It . . . drives us to be very, very angry, sometimes. She snorts. One might say furious. This anger also burns, of course. Burns you, if you are the one to contain it. So.

On her patrols, Aphaeleon found the first Brethren alcynus. They had a homeland of their own, before, in --

Apple lays a hand on Snow's scales again, his face an impenetrable mask of pleasantry.

-in the . . . north of the continent . . . but they'd been exiled from it. Massacred, too: thousands and thousands who didn't live long enough to run. Aphaeleon had to walk with them for a long time before they trusted her; she was an inferno of power in those days, and she carried a sword. The alcynus were running from another bright warrior spirit, and they assumed Aphaeleon would be the same. That she would . . . see their weaknesses, their flaws, and hate them, and kill them. Like the other had done.

Aphaeleon was gentle to them. She was a protector. But walking with them, she saw so many injuries -- inside and out -- of course she wanted to avenge it all. Needed to, maybe, I don't know. The Flame grew hotter with her rage, and her sanity evaporated like the water from a boiling kettle. Once it was empty, the kettle shattered into three main pieces and a million or so tiny splinters (which we've been gathering, as you saw). The main pieces are: Hadariel, her compassion, whom we still worship -- and who is dying. Istruzeth, the vengeance she never exacted, which will accept any target whatsoever to vent its rage on now. And finally Triraxus, her disgust at the spirit which had traumatized her new alcynus children. That other spirit called itself a protector as well, you see; it called itself righteous. But it killed the weak. The Golden Flame . . . it tries its best to burn such tendencies out of its creatures. A refining fire, like a smith's crucible. Triraxus has no Flame, but she has the disgust and the drive to purify; she tries to bleed all flaws out with a knife.

There's a faint tremor in Snow's wings, now, if you look for it. Her pupils have shrunk down to razor-blade slices. Apple, who trains his diplomatic poker face like martial artists rehearse katas, can't help fidgeting with the wedding ring on his right hand. "Right. So. Zerachiel . . . lost his sister once. He's losing her again -- Hadariel -- and he's, well, not a mortal but he still has feelings, and his . . . Flame is dying? Is that right?" Snow nods. "He's dying. If we lose one, we'll lose them both, and Iaoth and Anauel can't hold back all Valsora's demons on their own. So we have to bring Aphaeleon back. We're picking up the pieces of her spirit now; we're putting them together. Once they're all in one place, Zerachiel will breathe his remaining fire on them and melt them down -- killing all three of the current entities, because. Well. Um. Because -- I'm sorry, darling." This is addressed to Snow. "I . . . don't even understand this last bit myself."

Imagine a wineglass, Snow offers. You throw it on the ground and it shatters. You can glue the pieces back together; each piece still exists that way, and so does the whole glass, sort of. If you melt down the pieces and make a new glass, though . . . well, the glass still exists. Every bit of it that was in the pieces. But the pieces themselves stopped existing when you stirred them back together, right? Does that make sense? That's what we're working on.