"I'm sleepy."

The child leaned against the soft couch of the carriage, letting the sound of the turning wheels and the clopping of hooves upon dirt waft through her ears. She clutched a plush unicorn to her chest, her small fingers unconsciously brushing through its yarn mane. A yawn escaped her dry lips as her head began to loll sideways, plopping onto a firm, muscled arm. Her lashes fluttered.

"How much longer do we have to go?" she whined, her lips puckering into a small pout.

The child's dark eyes flitted upwards to see the jawline of the man sitting next to her. He turned his head towards her, allowing the familiar features of his face come into her line of sight— a pair of charcoal eyes like hers, a slightly flat nose, and lips curved upwards into a kind smile. He placed a hand on top of her scalp, ruffling her disheveled black locks. The weight and warmth of his large hand filled the child with comfort.

"Go to sleep, Faisuri. We have a long journey ahead of us."

The little girl squeezed her unicorn toy, the furrows between her eyebrows deepening.

"You're ignoring my question, Father. Where are we going?" she demanded.

"We're going to the Kingdom of Althewyn. You'll be staying with your Aunt Farisa for a while."

"But won't we arrive in the dead of night?"

The man put a finger to his lips in a conspicuous manner, in the manner of one about to share a secret.

"It's going to be a surprise," the man, Farhan, whispered. "I heard Farisa had a son around your age. You should get along well."

The child Faisuri rolled her eyes in disdain, puffing out her cheeks in visible disdain. "Ugh, I doubt that! Boys! They're probably more interested in playing swords than having tea parties and doing the things refined ladies do!"

The king laughed, a glimmer of humor dancing merrily within his dark eyes. Again he stroked his hand through the child's tangled locks, his fingers slicing through the knots that had formed between the strands. Young Faisuri's eyelids drooped. She would be well on her way to the realm of dreams, had the sudden jolts of the carriage crossing uneven ground not kept her awake.

"I'm sleepy," she remarked again, this time with a dash of frustration in her tone. "Tell me a bedtime story, Father."

Ever-patient, an amused smile crossed his face, deepening the crow's feet that perched at the corners of his narrow eyes. "Alright. Which story would you like to hear?"

The princess mused for a moment, turning her face away from her father's to look out the window. The cold of the night clung onto the glass, making it hard for Faisuri to discern anything that went on outside the carriage. Blurred silhouettes passed in and out of view, accompanied by glowing blotches of orange.

"I want to hear the story about the Primeval Flames and the Mist," she said, at last. Her father's brow made an arc.

"I don't think that would make such a good bedtime story. It is not a tale of peace, after all."

"I'm not scared," Faisuri insisted, though the way she lifted her unicorn higher up her chest to rest her chin upon its soft head said otherwise.

Knowing that his daughter was difficult to sway, Farhan decided to entertain her request. His gentle face shone with bemusement.

"Alright. Listen closely now."

His voice was dropped into a dramatic hush, and Faisuri felt the air grow cold around her.

"There was a time before the Mist shrouded our lone continent of Jordarys. A time when Jordarys stood among many other landforms and civilizations. In those ancient times, two gods reigned supreme over our world. We called them primordial gods, for their existence far surpasses those of gods such as our own patron god, Thieros.

Solaith, radiant goddess of the sun, and Lucanor, majestic god of the moon. The two of them were said to have come from the cosmos, along with reclusive Yildeza, the goddess of the stars.

When they set their sights upon this realm, they took notice of the gods birthed from the core of the planet: Calais, Stygenum, Aerhytus, Hyrresh, and Thieros. Solaith, ever kind and ever graceful, felt great affection towards these beings. She thought of them as their own children, bestowing upon them gifts of her own — their very own domains to rule over in the planet. Lucanor, on the other hand, saw them as instruments of justice and order. He, too, blessed them with the strength to uphold the order of the world. For a long time since, the favored gods maintained balance and harmony within the planet.

Until one day, a vision came to Yildeza... A vision of the world's destruction, brought upon by the very 'children' her two siblings favored."

Her father paused for effect. The shadows seemed to grow darker around them, dancing ominously against the interior walls of the carriage. Faisuri's heart pounded with anticipation. No matter how may times she had heard this story, she found this part the most gripping. It sent a shiver down her spine.

"Having been told by Yildeza of this, Solaith and Lucanor found themselves with conflicting views. Lucanor, believing in maintaining the balance of the world, sought to destroy the gods before the apocalypse could come to pass. Solaith, having so loved the gods like her own children, adamantly refused.

So, they fought.

Sun against moon, they fought a vicious battle. They found themselves equally-matched... and thus, they both struck a fatal blow against each other at the same time. Their blood rained down upon the world as burning embers, as their felled bodies hung in the sky as the sun and moon that grace our sky every day.

Hyrresh gathered their blood — the Primeval Flames. The moment he touched those flames, he saw the raw power and potential within them... and how dangerous they could be in the wrong hands. As the bearer of the flames, he hid it away from his brothers for safe-keeping.

Although it was not long that the others found out about this. Angered at the fact that Hyrresh kept the Primeval Flames away from them and accusing him of selfishly hoarding all that power, the gods fell into conflict over the rightful ownership of the flames.

And so it was, that the vision Solaith and Lucanor so desperately wanted to prevent came to pass.

Brother against brother, their battle shook the realm. The impact of their war destroyed this planet, unleashing the blight of the Mist upon the world. It consumed everything in its path, tearing this world asunder. Wanting to preserve at least one semblance of life, Hyrresh decided to sacrifice his pride and bestowed Jordarys with the Primeval Flames to ward off the Mist. He gave each of the nine races on this continent a fragment of the flames.

And to this day, the blood-red embers burn at the heart of every race, keeping the ever-growing Mist at bay."

Faisuri released the breath she had been holding, dropping her unicorn toy onto her lap the moment he was done. The princess had always felt a strange, morbid fascination about the legend of the World's End. She never got tired of it no matter how many times she read the tale or listened to someone retelling it. Yet, though all versions of the legend retained the same elements, an odd feeling of enigma lingered between the words — as if, behind the bloody drama of the familial feud, there was still a truth about the world hidden from the knowledge of mortals.

"It's terrible," the girl finally commented, with a frown. "They're siblings, are they not? Why couldn't they just talk things out?"

Her question prompted Farhan's countenance to adopt an expression of pity. There was a far-off look in his eyes as he looked at the young princess, the twin pools of gentle darkness transforming into wells of deep regret.

"The world is rarely so kind, my child," he whispered, leaning closer to Faisuri. His warm breath caressed her skin.

"But, remember... you have within your heart a blazing ember. Whenever you find yourself lost, reach for it. Let it burn and nothing can stand in your way."

————

It was strange to remember that scene of all things, but beyond conscious thought, those words had been etched onto her heart. The echo of their meaning would play in her mind with every hardship she was thrown into.

Even as she was staring death in the face time and time again.

An ironic chuckle escaped from her throat.

"Giving up and surrendering has been one of the hardest things for me to do. I suppose I am an entitled brat."

Faisuri opened her eyes and stared at the mismatched ones of her adversary. A bonfire sputtered to life somewhere from within her. Warmth began to seep through her blood, growing hotter and hotter by the second. She knew that this comfort would soon turn to pain — it always did — and after that pain, she would find herself back in the real world... no, the world of the living.

Yet this time, she did not fear the burning sensation. A peculiar smile of dark defiance spread across her face. She watched the fear she had always felt in this realm be projected into the beast's eyes. Its grip on her torso loosened.

"I want my throne back, Father. Until then, nothing shall stand in my way — not Aidan, not Fatiyah, not you... not even death."

Faisuri let out a scream as her vision filled with scarlet... or perhaps, it was the agonized howl of the Colossal Horror. She could no longer tell the difference. Her body, conflagrant, plummeted from the monster's grasp into the swirling miasma, like a falling star streaking a blood-red trail through the sky.

She must have lost her consciousness, for she awoke on her bed with the visibly shocked face of a physician looming over her.

A thousand thoughts began to pour into her head as she jolted upright into a sitting position, looking blearily at the concerned, familiar faces.

I just died.

I just came back from the dead.

The Colossal Horror is my father.

It's coming.

Where are my gloves?

Of all those thoughts, most of them dire in importance, it was the last of them that she managed to articulate.

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Chapter Writer: VeryBigMess

AN: Remember when I said I had to post the previous chapter or else I would chicken out for two weeks? That didn't go so well XD

This is such a pivotal scene in the story and I feel like I will never be satisfied by the way I have written this. I guess I should try to actually plan out my story for once ^^" . I feel like there are so many things wrong with my writing here (it's quite exposition-y and the ending is far too abrupt), but I really do not want to hold up the flow for my co-writer, so... here it is. Time to shove it into my ever-growing "list of chapters requiring extensive editing" XD

Anyways, I hope that you are all doing well. Stay safe!