Awakening

I went to sleep that night with one word echoing in my mind - “failure”. On and on it droned, “failure”, like a demonic calling towards the abyss. “You failed”. Again and again and again I failed. Over and over and over again I barely grasped onto survival, filled with the scrapes, cuts and bruises I have become all too accustomed to. When I finally fell asleep, I appreciated the silence. For now, at least, the voice stops.
 
I find myself in a desert expanse, that seems familiar yet eerie. The sun is high in the sky, giving a warm and welcome glow to the landscape. As I turn around the get my bearings, I recognise the dome of Dahb in the distance. I fly my way over there, to the one thing I recognise.
 
As I arrive, the strange feeling I had kicks in louder. There’s no one here at all, and yet the city looks untouched. I search far and wide, guard posts, houses, the marketplace, even the casino where we found Zyanya, and yet the whole place seemed abandoned. As I further explored, that eerie feeling starts to drone, louder, louder, and louder still. I focus my senses, and notice it seems to be coming from the temple, so I follow the noise.
 
Louder, louder, louder the feeling becomes, going from an eerie drone to a strong feeling of dread shivering up my spine. I ignored the feeling, knowing I had to find the source of the noise if I am to understand this dream. As I get closer and closer to the temple, I start to see some kind of light emanating from the centre of it - dull, but more obvious as I approach.
 
Suddenly, when I am within view of the temple entrance, I see a Solen, with golden, partially glowing feathers, perched on the roof, eying me. He sits there, with a smirk, waiting for me. I stop, trying to gauge if he is friend or foe, until he beckons me forward with a finger.
 
“Come now, child. I have been waiting for this moment for a long time, do not delay it further.” His voice surrounds me entirely, despite being so far away. I follow his instructions, the feeling getting louder and louder as I approach. He must be the source. As I reach around 10 metres away from him, the dreading feeling almost drowning all of my senses, it is suddenly replaced with a divine, radiant warmth. It was as is I was untouchable, that nothing could possibly stop me.
 
“Who, or what, are you?” I queried the Solen. “Some kind of Angelic demon?”. I had heard that demons were able to penetrate the dreams of those in strife, and would manipulate people into doing their bidding. The dreamwalkers spend their time fighting these demons in the dreams to prevent them from manipulating mortals. It was one of my worries about Gurval, considering he believed Ailil had information about Ko of all people, 6 months after we last saw her.
 
His face suddenly turned into a fierce scowl. “Don’t be so naive, Syrus.” He practically spat the last word. “I have been following you, alongside you, and you don’t even recognise the radiance of your own flesh and blood?” Suddenly, I feel a sharp warmth spread throughout my body, getting warmer and warmer, until it starts to become searing and painful. As I look down at my body, I see my veins underneath my feathers glowing golden, and starting to burst with light.
 
He continues, “You have been hiding who you are, from yourself, and from others. And where has that brought you?” I start to see flashes of my adventures with the Misfits - the dream I had with Talu at the Emerald Grove, in Dahb fighting against the Phrat’ii with the white Solen soul, at Diometer when the Enkelados cultists killed the king, during the fight with Naoto and Misato - he was there at every moment, watching me. Waiting to see how I would react.
 
Suddenly, the voice I heard when I first tried to rest echoed, this time I recognised it as the Solen’s. “Failure. Failure. Failure.” I tried to fight off the voice, fight off the pain, but in the end I submitted. He was right. I had failed. That was all I was.
 
He hops down, without any effort, and approaches my hunched over figure. As he gets closer, both the noise and pain start to fade, disappearing entirely when he is beside me. “Arise, my child. We have much work to do, and you need to awaken the strength within to achieve it.”
 
As he puts his hand on my shoulder, guiding me back up, I finally recognise the figure before me. I had seen this figure in so many books, in so many stories my mother and father taught me as a child. “You’re… you’re Kah, aren’t you?” I tried to state calmly, but came out as a blubber.
 
“Emperor, God, Demon, Warlord, Savior. I have been called many things. Kah will suffice.” He responds. Suddenly, he passes me a bow - my bow - and disappears 15 metres away. “I want you to hit me with everything you have. Don’t hold back” - the smirk reappears - “If you hit me, I’ll explain the path forward.”
 
I prepared my bow, and notched two arrows. Before he could react, I pulled back and fired, one after another. Before my eyes, he disappeared in a gleam of light, and I felt his warmth behind me. The arrows continued into the wall of the temple, and I was suddenly shoved from behind. “You’ll have to be much faster than that, Syrus”, he mocked, practically spitting my name yet again.
 
As I turned to face him, he was gone again. I tried to scan the area, but couldn’t find him at all. Suddenly, I felt myself ripped from the ground, and hurtled hundreds of metres in the air. The city of Dahb was a speck down below - this is much higher than I have ever flown before. As I stabilised myself in the air, I notice Kah watching me with his smirk again, upside down.
 
“My turn,” he mocks again, sending a bolt of light towards me. In my shock, I barely have time to move out of the way, until I realise that I wasn’t the target. With a searing radiance, my bow snaps in half, and the arrow in my hand disintegrated into light. I had no other weapons or way to fight.
 
“Don’t tell me you’re done already, child. I didn’t come all this way for this pathetic display.” He continued, as the voice started to echo in my head again. “Failure, failure, failure.”
 
“Shit.” I murmur, realising the gravity of the situation. Faced with a god, surrounded by nothing but air and sun, with no weapons - no, I still have my arrows. I quickly grab one from my quiver, and perioutte in the air, launching it at the god. As it leaves my hand, I feel and see a divine spark of light, and the arrow glows with a bright radiance and approaches at a far faster speed than I can throw.
 
“Now you’re beginning to understand.” He comments, effortlessly dodging the throw arrow. “Now we can begin.” He smirks.
 
The next few minutes we spent dogfighting around the sky, but I could not manage a single hit. Several sparks of divine light would ricochet off my body, knocking me off course until I recovered and pressed on.
 
Until suddenly, miraculously, one of my Divine Arrows managed to curve in midair to hit Kah. I had someone done the impossible, and managed to strike a god. His smirk turned insta a manic grin, and his laugh shattered the tension in the air. “You actually managed to hit me, huh? I guess there’s hope for you after all!”
 
With a snap of his fingers, we were suddenly in an Oasis far away. Standing in a clear, shallow pool of water, the name of this place came to me suddenly, “The Radiant Garden?” Kah’s afterlife for all Solen who follow his guidance.
 
“You’re not so naive after all, child. What better place for us to make our deal. You wanted to know the next step in your journey, correct?”
 
“I don’t need to know anything. I know what my role is, and where I’m going.” I replied.
 
Kah laughed uproariously, loud enough to shake the very palm trees and ripple the water. “You cannot be serious, you absolute pestilent brat! What, you plan to take down the insignificant roughnecks of Zyniii that call themselves gangs? They mean nothing to the likes of you or me. You have the opportunity for power - real power - if you embrace your heritage. Your blood. My blood.
 
“The dragon egg Syrus. That is our deal - you collect the egg, and I will grant you the power of your birthright, and you can be by my side as my first warrior of light. All you need to do is stop hiding behind your childish subterfuge and embrace who you truly are.”
 
The Misfits immediately came to my mind. “What about my friends? Where do they fit into this plan?”
 
The laugh was even louder this time. “Friends? The dwarf that is more monster than man, who attacked your closest ally. The overgrown lizard that had forsaken you in your time of need. The sewer rat that refused to tell you anything, then got upset when things went fatally wrong. The golden jesters who only show up after the hard work is done. The moon pup with father issues. Or the twisted union of two imperfect souls. Those friends of yours? If they’ll help you get the egg where it belongs, you can use whoever you wish. But don’t waste your time with those who would abandon you without a thought.”
 
I suddenly awoke with a start, almost throwing myself out of the bed. As Saib ran in to check on me, I looked down at my hands, and notice a faint glow.
 
“Saib, we need to find the egg,” I say to him, as I hear that same voice echo in my mind. “