Rage Against the Dying of the Light

The night sky is not a natural occurrence on Starset Lake. For one, the time of day is past noon and the sun has no business being absent at this hour. The sky aurora that gently brushes colors of orange, violet, and blue does not exist to the upward gaze. It is a clear sight to a sea of stars without a hint of light pollution. Even the gently glowing fauna here compliments the vision of those assembled along the lakeside as Elara makes her way out to see a god.
The companions associated are a motley crew. Among them a silver dragonborn from a noble house, a red eyed devil, and a blue-white hued cat with long, fennec ears. The Devil strums on a stringed instrument, a gift from a wanderer who seeks the dragonborn at behest of his half-sister. The dragonborn stands with an impatient appointment with a destiny he doesn't care for. The cat? He remains an adorable addition sitting between them.
"Almost time," says Gig, the Devil, as a wind begins to howl around the shoreside party. "Have you considered my offer?"
The dragonborn, Ty Targarius, shifts to hear Gig better. Each step is greeted with the sheer weight of a mountain scale and muscle. "I gave it all the consideration it needed."
An amused, wild smile creeps up on Gig's face. "Haaaaaave you?"
"Yeah. None," Ty replies simply.
The musician stops playing, swinging his legs over the rock he lounges on to sit up proper. A quick hop and the short silver-haired Devil stands besides the dragon twice his size. "You wound me!"
"I can wound you. Is a request?" Ty looks sidelong to the horned trickster.
"Only if you mean it. I've been a bad, bad..."
"No. Just. No," Ty scoffs.
Pangur Ban, a majestic floof, looks up with his big cat-like eyes to the two. A single paw stomps the ground with all the menace of an angry butterfly. It has no effect on the two.
Gig remains silent as his personality shifts. The wind kicks up and the ritual is starting. "Well. Without my deal, there is a v-e-r-y good chance you'll die. I have gathered plenty of suitable souls to offer. Pangur there, well, that well runneth deep-eth." The Devil runs his red eyes down to the gentle blue cat that squints up at Gig. "Odd man out is you, Ty. You looking for a place to die, mm? Mm? Are ya? Martyr is a poor look on you. What, oh what, would your sister think?"
"Gig."
"Yes?" queries the Devil with big, hopeful eyes filled with fire and infernal darkness.
"All things have a cost and the cost isn't always someone's life. Sometimes it is just the will to stand up and fight for what you believe in. Even if you are wrong, you can always find your way if you keep moving forward. Being dead isn't moving forward," the dragonborn responds, "and to be a martyr you have to die for a cause." He straightens up, gripping on his large sword as he thrusts it into the ground for support. "I have not died, nor will I die here. However, if you talk about my sister again, I can't say the same for you."
Gig smiles as he settles his gaze out to the lake. The time is upon them. "That a promise?"
"Its a deal," Ty says as the dragon, the devil, and the celestial cat are spirited to the center of the lake. Their bodies are left behind as radiant energy becomes their new forms. Along with Elara's companions, the three travel beyond the veil of the Material world to a place where time and space feel alien. A place where the ground is endless darkness and the sky matches. A place where an egg the size of a house lives, waiting for the chance to simply exist.
Ty and Gig float around, but Pangur gently jumps to the sound of a melody which makes its way to this place. It stirs the egg as if waking it from a long slumber. When Pangur jumps, a firefly glow of light illuminate the form of other people. A half-elf, a dwarf, a gnome, another half-elf. The pattern continues as if sustaining their light.
"This place is familiar," Ty says as his voice warbles through all of the empty space. His feet find solid ground where there was none.
Gig continues to float, backstroking through the void as an avid swimmer of darkness, "Does it? Oh! Right. Where Targe banished you."
Ty grips onto his silver cast greatsword that came with him to this place. "He didn't banish me there."
"Didn't he, though? For not being a good widdle dwaggin in his widdle war?" Gig says as he swims around Ty's brooding form.
Ty reaches for Gig, yoinking him from the float in a 'gurk!' sound. "More importantly, if we are here, we are in grave danger."
Gig slips out of his coat, leaving Ty with an article of clothing as the shirtless man skips backwards to the egg. "Of course we are! Isn't it fun?"
Discarding the clothing, which immediately turns to red ash, Ty approaches the egg with the others. "So. What do we do with this? Ideas?" he says, leaning forward to put his ear on the large egg. A heartbeat resides there. Strong. Steady.
The listening is interrupted as one of Pangur's spiritual guardians fires an arrow at a creature of shadow. It barely has a form in this landscape of eternal darkness. Only the light of the arrows shows it to be a gangly creature of jagged obsidian.
"You fight, I'll figure out the egg," Gig says as he climbs up the stone-like object.
Ty objects, "Why? So you can turn it into some shadow dragon under your control?"
Pangur and his spiritual allies continue the valiant fight against the creatures of darkness. However, they are spread too thin to effectively handle the assault on all ends. The devil and the dragon continue the argument. "No," Gig says, offended or mock-offended, "I would not do that."
The dragonborn draws his sword, cleanly cleaving an obsidian demon in half, "I don't believe you."
"Do you, perhaps, believe I am a man of deals if not a man of words. I am, afterall, a Devil-ishly good looking Devil," Gig says, materializing a series of arcane instruments to examine the egg as a magical, devil sleuth in a world of demonic battle carnage and inky blackness.
"I believe that," the silver dragonborn says, moving out of the way as an arrow sails by to fell a demon at his side.
"Then lets make a deal!" Gig says with a broad smile that shows off his jagged, pointed teeth.
"No," Ty says flatly as he flattens the fallen demon by his feet.
"But you didn't hear my deal! I promise to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and NOTHING but the truth, so help me Gig," the Devil says, hand over heart, atop of the large egg.
"Yeah? Thats a promise, eh?" Ty says, taking Gig serious for a moment. A classic mistake.
"Its a deal," Gig says with fire in his eyes.
"Deal," Ty says, drawing his sword rushing into the heat of the battle to give some much needed aid to Pangur and his companions. The first to fall is the gnome, quickly avenged by Ty's blade. "Did we just lose someone back on the shore?"
Gig floats on down, concluding his examination and walking out to the fighting grounds. "Nope. You see, we are under different laws here. That was, huh, how to explain it to a simple mortal. Its like that 'good idea' that you forget. Its forgotten, but its not gone. And," he motions back to the egg, which pulses in light, "it gets absorbed by this little guy. Think of it as imprinting your ideologies on a new life."
The dragonborn grumbles at the explanation. He liked Gig better when he gave short, facetious answers. "Are you talking like this because of our deal," Ty asks directly.
"Yes. The truth, in all its boring-as-fuck forms," Gig responds as a Devil and a Scholar. "Oh. Oh yes. You there!" He points to a demon that is roaring down on one of the half-elf guardians. "Time to die!" A maniacal laughter echos as he makes a gesture with his hand to pull apart a small object, reflecting by ripping apart the demon in the distance and making it rain deep red blood. "Oh. Oh yeah," Gig dances, busting a jig as Gig around Pangur. "Saved ya. Killed a Demon. Can't contain these good feelings, gotta dance it out."
And so Gig did dance it out. He danced it out and killed roughly one dozen demons.
Ty, on the other hand, took the battle more seriously and kept a perimeter around the egg as the spiritual soldiers slowly fell one by one. The battle came at a cost, leaving only the three left at the end of it.
"Last one," the dragonborn says, defeating the demon with a carefully timed cleave. It was the penultimate demon of that skirmish, however.
Pangur believes him, and without any more guardians to protect him, is left defenseless as the final demon leaps from the shadows. Gig steps in, gripping the demon by its throat and effortlessly removes its head. "Close, but they are gone now," the Devil says as he looks down. Pangur looks up with big, scared eyes. Thankful eyes. Eyes that make Gig horribly uncomfortable. "What? Stop it."
"I didn't do it for you," Gig starts, "I really wanted to kill it."
Big, thankful eyes.
"Don't you start with me!"
Big, scared eyes.
"Ok. So I didn't want you to be a demon pancake, too. But, just a little bit. Maybe you'd like pancake life. Have you tried it? No. Then how do you really kno.." What Gig didn't realize that Pangur was afraid due to the much larger demon behind Gig. If Gig was paying more attention or, perhaps, communicated more effectively, he would have interpreted the hops and churrs as ones of danger. He did not.
The thigh, abyssal fist comes down on Gig's head, crashing him to the floor of pure darkness. His form is left in a ghostly, ethereal state as his energy is drawn to the egg and absorbed. "Gig damn it!" Gig yells at the demon. "Well played!" he can't help but admit it was smart. Not that the demon as large as a house needed it. Another fist comes to Pangur who runs for his little adorable life.
Ty notices the situation and rushes towards Pangur, drawing his great sword low and meeting the massive foe in direct combat. A clean strike fails to penetrate the armor, causing both foes to rocket backwards from the recoil of the strike.
"So," Ty starts, "Gig. Are you dead now or what?" He does not leave his eyes from the enemy, but can't help but notice Gig is a ghost.
"Nope, unlike the 'good feels' crew, Pangur and I are here of our own powers to guide these wayward souls to join this egg. It is part of the ritual and..." Gig starts, putting on a pair of ghost glasses and pontificating.
"I am sorry I asked!" Ty shouts at the Devil, engaging once more with the large demon. A flurry of strikes lead them to another stalemate. "Fuck. This guy is strong."
Gig floats next to Ty, turns upside down, and observes, "Yep. Hey, Pangur. Little help?" The radiant cat nods up to Gig and to Ty. In a flash of light, the small creature hops up onto Ty's large shoulder and then into his sword. It shines a brilliant white light, but only a ghostly Pangur remains afterwards.
Standing behind Ty, the two ghosts cheer him on, "Alright, Ty. Lets finish this up and go home." Ty finally smiles. Grins, even. A direction he can agree with. Charging forward he lights up the darkness in a display of holy vengeance, filling the world with the radiance necessary to bring the demon down to a knee.
All things have a price. When Ty returns to his senses, he is as whole as he was moments prior. His sword, however, is no more than a hilt and a jagged extrusion of silver. Tossing it to the ground, he states, "Sword for a life? Fair trade for a change." Something he felt proud of. Normally his sword takes life. For once it protected life.
If things ended right here, Ty would have changed the tides of fate. He would have averted disaster on his terms. However, fate is a cruel, jealous monster. It did not end right there.
The demon coughs to life with as much a miracle as its defeat. Red eyes burn as it attempts to stand, but can't. It wheezes.
"Well, shit," Ty says, cracking his knuckles. Gig quickly interrupts, "You can't hurt it with your fists."
Ty looks back over his shoulders, "So, what, we just leave it here?"
Gig shakes his head, "Nope. It has won. You just don't see it yet. Lets go. Just pour that dragon goodness into the egg and we can figure out another plan." The Devil remains on a serious note.
Ty looks back to the demon, who is drawing in fire. "It hasn't won yet," the dragon explains.
Gig frowns, crossing his arms over his bare chest, "Alright. I'll step you through it. Demon crawls to egg. Smashes it. It wins. Demon pours its life into pyrebreath and it, also, wins. You cant hurt it so both of those cases you lose."
The dragon takes a deep breath in and exhales slowly. He had thought it was possible to find a path where one did not have to decide. An ending where everybody is happy. Everybody lives. Doesn't he deserve that? He closes his eyes and when they open he remembers that there is no future except the one you make for yourself. "You are wrong, Gig."
"Adorable as your stubborn nature is, I can't lie to you. I am not wrong. There are LAWS to these sorts of things, Ty. Laws we are bound to. Things like 'Everything has a price'. You can't make something from nothing. You can't make a star from nothing just because you want it," Gig starts, angry at Ty's inconceivable stance on reality. "Look, I'll make you a deal. I'll fix your condition if you go back, now. Then the two of us can figure out how to fix this."
The dragon takes a deep breath and exhales again, building up a pace. A pattern. It matches the demon's. "What happens if that thing wins, Gig?"
There is silence.
"Gig?"
"It would die or suffer a fate worse than death. Eventually it could be reborn as a creature that lives only to destroy life," Gig admits, "But! That takes time! We can... separate those parts. Or. Transfer it! The dwarf might even do the job for us. Easy peasy." The Devil clenches his fist, "The damn ritual was designed this way. There are LAWS. LAWS that need to be followed. You lost."
It all clicked for Ty in that moment. Why Celestian reached out to him. Why nothing was answered. Why all road led him here. "I have always wondered what seduced Targe into thinking The Great War was such a good idea. It sounds... enticing. Logical," he clenches his fist, "And I have also wondered if Targe would make the same choice knowing how much pain and suffering it caused. Generations of slavery to a destiny they never asked for." A pause, "Thank you for being honest with me, Gig, but I know what I have to do."
"Ty," Gig starts, but it is too late. Ty is a large dragonborn with the echo of Targe's soul echoing within his own. On borrowed time, he draws a breath and exhales a stream of intense cold towards the demon. In response, the demon prepares his defense of abyssal fire. The two lock in a contest of ice and fire.
The ghostly visage of Pangur and Gig watch in silence as the two pour out their souls in a deafening roar. The color pulls from Ty's silver scales until they become granite. Wisps of white crystalline soul joins along with memory after memory of Ty's existence. For one moment the world was not against him. Not demanding something of him because of his birthright. Memories of others wander from across the expanse to rally behind him. Memories of villainy, hope, and triumph. Of love. And in that last push, the ice reaches the demon's face and it continues until he is encased in a glass cage of cold.
"Hahh," heaves Ty as he attempts to breathe, "Hahh. Hrrnngg," he heaves foot over foot. Memories of war fade. Of soldiers he killed. Of innocents he killed. "Hrraaggh." Of promises he kept. And broke. Of joy. Of pain.
Looking down to the creature, Ty reaches out, leaning on the frozen entity as the demon's eyes move. Waiting to thaw. Ty looks back at it, some nameless beast from the void. The violet draining from his eyes. Clenching his fist, the dragonborn reeled backwards, foot planting as it felt as if he was lifting a mountain. "Gah!" he exhales, crashing down with his fist and frame to shatter the demon.
Ty doesn't recover from the attack, his body shattering through the corpse of ice as he hits the ground. "Hahh," he breathes into the darkness. Rolling his shoulders, he slides onto his back. Eyes cast upwards to the empty, black sky as it fills with light. Small lights. Twilinking. Sparkling as the ice breaks and drifts as snowflakes painting a night sky.
"Hah," Ty laughs weakly, "Haha. Hah." He holds onto one singular memory.
Io, why are you crying?
Because one day you are going to die.
That so?
Uh huh. And then... I wouldn't be able to see you any more.
That wouldn't be so bad.
Yes it would! Who would watch the stars with me?
I still would. Whenever you look up, we will see the same stars together.
But what if all of the stars go out?
Then we make our own.