Date: March 13, 1999 (Backscene)
Place: Lycenae - Arelate - Eastern Empyre
Cast: Ismene, Khalid (I/III), Phoebe
Scene: The horrors of war are not some distant, abstract idea, but brutal reality, as a single Empyrean family attempts to flee the doomed Lycenae and encounters the "demon-god" of their enemies.

It is cold and it is winter, a stark bleak winter afternoon as the sun hangs high in the sky, looking down upon the condemned. His son in flesh and blood, immortal still and a god as well, flies in the crisp blue skies upon a steed that is all but legendary. The wyvern Queen, greatest of all the Queens to dominate the lands, screeches loudly as she looks for prey. With a might flap of her leathery wings, she soars above the doomed city of Lycenae with grace and fury.

Khalid Atar sits atop the Queen, firmly planted in the thick leather saddle, holding the reins with his left hand as he grips his divine ebon blade in his right. Fiery blue eyes survey the crowds that stream out of Lycenae in the air and on the ground, searching for those he shall kill this day. His long black hair streaks behind him, and cross his chest, like a veil of silken strands.

Far below, a smaller bit of chaos amidst the larger, is House Cithaeron. A well-to-do middle-class family, or tenuous upper-class, depending on which side you're looking at it from. Thomas is a city official, Maria's a scribe. Both carry over-the-shoulder satchels of important documents, jewels, coins. Things small enough to take with them. Maybe they'll be able to come back, pick through the ruins -- maybe the destruction won't be as bad as the winged demon said.

Maybe.

Ismene is saying a wide-eyed farewell to a matronly old servant, one that's been with the family longer than she has. Wingless and arthritic, she'll stick to the road, and they'll meet up later, and all will be well. Right? Ismene squeezes gnarled hands one more, then steps back, grabbing Phoebe's pink little hand in hers as Pater and Mater call to them from the side of the road. Time to flee--er, fly.

The child's other hand is currently engaged in wiping at the pouty tears staining round cheeks. Papa said she couldn't bring her kitten, and Phoebe -- who barely understands the deadly significance of what is going on -- worries only that her tiny pet won't be able to sleep at night without the girl there. But Papa said she had to be a brave girl, and so brave she attempts, snuffling only quietly while reluctantly allowing Ismene to pull her further down the road to catch up with their chalky-faced parents.

Like a grim judge or a black-winged emissary of death, Khalid continues to circle above the ill-fated city of Lycenae upon his dragon-like Queen. His ebon blade is already slick, wet with the blood of prior victims of his wrath. Two soldiers from the city and one noble. Still, there are others out there and he searches the ground and air for them, closely. He will be as merciful as possible, but those foolish enough not to disguise themselves properly will suffer a terrible end.

There are so many officials trying to flee, so many obvious ones. Surely an official-looking chimere and the city seal upon a pair of satchels won't be noticed. They may be fleeing their home, livelihood and city, but a little scrap of pride can be forgiven... can't it?

"Ismene. Phoebe. Hurry, sweetlings." Maria's voice, looking from Lycenae to her children to the sky, then back again. To Ismene: "Help your sister if she can't keep up. We need to hurry." She shares a pale, taut look with her husband before the pair takes to the air, splitting apart to give room for their children to fly between.

"C-c'mon," Ismene says, finding a shaky smile somewhere on her numb face to give her sister. "Up we go." She steps back, giving her sister room to climb aloft before following after her.

It's a shaky bobbing ascent that Phoebe makes into the air -- flying she can do, take-offs and landings still come with some difficulty. And judging from the subdued manner of both parents and sister, now is probably not the best time to show off her new ariel trick that spins her wildly around in unpredictable directions. And this chill! If she weren't Papa's Brave Girl, there would be an incredibly fussy seven-year-old to cope with right now. But, as things stand - - fly -- now, she too is quiet, still sniffling as small wings pump rapidly to push her up after Thomas and Maria.

Furious blue eyes, eyes that have spotted assassins and archers hidden within crowds or spied armies in the distant horizon for a thousand years and more, do indeed catch the glimpse of that noble attire and symbol. It takes a few moments for Khalid to truly focus on the family, but when he does, he steers his mighty steed in the direction of his intended victims. The Queen throws back her head and roars, before plunging down into the attack.

As if waking from a daze, those Empyreans who were blocking the path of the God-King scramble to escape his wrath and avoid his vengeance. Some scream and dive away on white wings, while others react with repressed panic and fly high, hoping to soar above the God of Fire's reach. All of them are ignored as the Varati king bears down on Maria and Thomas.

Thomas had diverted his attention from the sky before him in order to look back, check on the position of his children. A strained shout of, "Hurry! Ismene, stay close to Phoe--" is cut sharply off as screams and that unearthly bellow of the wyvern assault his ears. When clear blue eyes refocus on what is before him, vision is filled with the plummeting shadow of the God-King and his mount. Breath stolen and heart thudding raw terror in his chest, the Empyrean man tries to roll and drop beneath the death falling towards him. Maybe, just maybe Death will follow him, leave wife and daughters to escape.

And maybe Phoebe will have a chance to show off her new trick. The sudden change in her father's flight startles the child from studious concentration on her own, alerting her to the grim reality of what is happening. Eyes that match those of her father's come close to bulging out of her head in utter horror at the -- for her -- unexpected attack. A piercing scream shatters the crisp winter air, the sound almost drowned in the quick snap and flurry of wings flashing out to bring forward progress to a halt -- sending her tumbling backwards through the air towards Ismene.

"That's great, Phoebe. You're doing just fine." Maria's voice, made thready in the harsh winter air. She looks back over her shoulder, watching her children struggle to keep up. So brave, they are. Will they still be brave when they're resettled, trying to make ends meet? The servants' wages -- if they do indeed meet down the road -- have to be met. She can work as a scribe, but will there be a place for Thomas? Her mind aches, trying to keep up with everything that's happened this day. She turns her attention to the sky before her, the sounds of screaming reaching her ears... and sees Him. Blue eyes go wide and blank as her wings flap violently, braking, trying to change direction. "Thomas!" she screams, struggling for the knife at her hip. Thomas insisted she wear it. She hoped she'd never use it. Rather than follow her husband, she rears back in front of her children, metal flashing in the stark winter sunlight.

"Pater!" Ismene's voice, a shrill, young scream. Oh gods, ohgodsplease, that monster can't be going after him! Her wings falter when Phoebe tumbles her way, and there's that terrible stomach-dropping sensation of about-to-fall before they pick her up. One hand latches to Phoebe's arm as she struggles to get her sister upright, help her wings find the air again, even as she stares, horrified, at the approaching wyvern queen and its rider.

Like one of the Furies unleashed from the Heavens, or a demon escaped from the Hells, the wyvern Queen bears down on Thomas with swift, powerful wings. She is filled with bloodlust and hate for these Empyreans that are her master's enemies and she screeches out a last challenge before tearing into her victim. The Empyreal noble may be fast, but she is faster still, and his attempt to lure her off only provides the Queen with the chance to capture him. One terrible claw wraps itself around his body, as talons dig into his tender flesh, while the other claw comes up to rake into the man's chest and head. And Khalid Atar, mounted upon this horrific beast, watches the entire scene with utter dispassion, murmuring simply, "All nobles shall pay the price of this war."

Blood flies, torn from the man with a horrible, bubbling scream before his soul departs, leaving nothing more than a limp tattered shell of flesh and feathers stained in red. So quick... an attempt to evade, a capture, a bright flare of something snaring and ripping in blinding pulses of pain through the being and then silence.

Yet shock and terror lingers. Papa may be gone but Phoebe is still there, numb, unaware of the hand grasping her arm or the automatic recovery of faltering wingbeats to keep her aloft. The child's own cry has choked off, leaving the sour taste of rising bile in her throat -- blue eyes now filled with the red of her father's blood raining down on those fleeing by foot. A happy life of sunshine and butterflies and kittens could in no way prepare one so young for this murder -- and murder it is, or will be seen as such, once... if... her mind has time to recover. For now she can only stare, deeply entrenched in shock.

Maria thought black was the most horrible color feathers could be. She thought wrong. Red, so much red, and things beneath never meant to be seen... noble features and fair skin torn apart like scraps for stray dogs... that scream, that horrible scream, made even worse by the way it stops... her husband, her heart, the father of her children...

Falling.

She doesn't think of what may happen to her. She's beyond that. She thinks of her children behind her, and her heart cleaved in half and left diminished and raw. She attacks, knife in hand, screaming in utter fury despite her tears. She knows how tender wings are -- she tries to slash one of the wyvern queen's.

Behind her, fingers hurtingly-tight on Phoebe's arm, hovers Ismene, staring. Staring. Abandoning their home was bad enough. Hearing the words of this monster on scroll was worse. But this... is beyond reckoning. "Mater," she whimpers, barely loud enough to hear it herself.

There is no mercy. There is no hope. Only vengence and fury and rage. The Queen has the now dead Thomas within her terrible claws and begins to tear at the tender flesh with her teeth, gnawing on the body as if it were some snack to sate her most terrible hungers. Her huge, tooth-filled maw opens again, dripping with the blood and gore of the one-time proud noble of the Empyre, as she takes another bite of her hapless victim without concern or worry for her surroundings.

On the other hand, her master, the God-King of the Varati, is acutely aware of the threat Maria poses. Pivoting in his saddle he leans to the side as the Empyreal woman flies just too close to him... The ebon blade whips out, slicing the hand bearing the dagger off of Maria. His fiery blue eyes rise to match the woman he is about to kill, looking her squarely in the face.

An echo of her sister's whimper comes the soft query, "Papa?" The reality is too new, too large and overwhelming for one child's mind to grasp. All of that blood, and those screams, this nightmare that isn't conveniently ending so that she might wake up and cry for a short while in her nurse's arms, then be fine. The monster is eating her father! An image that will haunt the dreams of Phoebe's soul, carve deep wounds that will fester until the day she herself dies. Young strength is nothing against this -- wings speckled with the blood of both parents begin to falter in their beats, dropping Phoebe down through the sky in sickening hitches and lurches as if her numb mind can't quite decide to force her to go back up, and attack in visceral protest, or simply let her fall.

Ismene's wings have a few years' more training and reflex behind them; they try to beat stronger, keep herself and her sister safe from plummeting without conscious reminder. A good thing, that -- she's not thinking anymore. Staring. The monster is eating her father... or what's left of him. Living bodies were never meant to move like that, or be shaped in the way those serpent-jaws reform a corpse. Her face is porcelain, her eyes cracked blue glaze.

Even bearing a dagger meant to rend and hurt and drive away, that hand was pale and elegant, ink-stains and scribe's calluses like adornments. Now it is meat, twitching with its last instructions to hang on to the blade, falling towards the blood and feathers already littering the snow. Maria doesn't scream -- the shock is too great -- and can only clutch at her wrist, wings faltering behind her. She stares at her lifeblood pulsing out in time to her heart, feels it emptying out warmly between her fingers, then lifts her eyes to her killer. Blank with shock and incomprehension, wet with bloodied tears, all they can do is stare. It wasn't supposed to be like this. All they wanted to do was get away, start anew, find somewhere their children would be safe.

It is not to be. War brings terror and cruelties upon the innocent and on this day, it is the innocent who suffer the most. The Aegians in their vaunted city in the clouds are protected and not a single Praetor is to be seen, so it is those who claim the title 'noble' or 'soldier' who are made to suffer, even if they have had no hand in this war. Thomas is slowly consumed in a terrible display of blood and skin. The crunch of bones breaking under the strain of powerful jaws and wicked teeth is the final sign of the Queen's destruction of the body of the one-time Empyreal noble. Muscles, flesh and organs are all devored by the monster. The remains of the mangled corpse, what little is left, fall from those red-black claws, towards the ground below.

"I will spare your children." These parting words, this slight bit of comfort, is all that Khalid Atar offers the doomed Maria. The ebon blade strikes out again and again, shredding Maria's body in a more merciful way, as the mother and scribe's body is skewered by that unholy weapon. A last stroke and her head is lopped off, dropping from the heavens, to join the remains of her husband below.

Gods are such distant things to children. Young ones' prayers go to their mothers, to keep away tears, and kiss away scraped knees, and sing laughing songs when it's raining outside. Phoebe's vacant eyes turn from the horrid sight of what's left of her father dancing in the claws of that monster, seeking out the reassuring maternal presence that will make all of this just stop -- and only finding a fresh source of crimson nightmare. Fortunate for the child -- though fortunate is a debatable thing in this present horror -- that Ismene is able to keep them both from falling; falling is what Phoebe would surely be doing, if she weren't borne up, directly after catching sight of the Demon King parting Mama's head from her neck. Held as she is by her sister though, she is left ample time and breath to scream. Wordless sound as black creeps in on her vision -- just scream out the chilling notes of an innocent world shattering.

This isn't happening.

This can't be happening.

But it is. Ismene's eyes, the summer's-blue light within frozen and shattered to wintry splinters, follow the gouts of blood released by the touch of that unholy black blade, the final, unimaginably horrible parting of Maria's head from her body. Empyreans have an instinctive eye for momentum; the speed at which that body drops is undeniably final, the last proof needed. No regrouping and flying away to safety, no words of comfort. Pater's savaged body is a crumpled heap in the fouled snow; Mater's body is scarcely better. So much red leaking from such horrible sights. Ismene's eyes lift to the God-King and his nightmare creature, blinking numbly, then start to glaze over. Some tiny instinct for survival nudges her; fainting would be death. She can't die. She can't let her sister die. There has to be... there will be... some reckoning for this, for what the demon-king has done. And so her wings, instead of going limp and useless, shakily start to lower her towards the ruin of their parents. She clings to her sister, trembling, tears leaking unnoticed and icy down her cheeks.

Gazing for a long time upon what she has wrought, upon the desecrated and ruined bodies of the two Empyrean parents, the wyvern Queen's hungers have only been slightly satisfied. Licking the blood from her gore-covered snout with a long serpentine tongue, she seems eager to continue to carnage and tries to strain against the reins towards the two children. Yet, she is held firmly in check by the grim, somber black-winged God-King. With steady, sad blue eyes, he watches the heirs of his terrible justice for a long, silent moment. Then, wheeling, the Queen away, he begins searching the horizon, anew, for more doomed souls.

FIN  

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