I was too greedy. I should have just gone to the Commission and confessed. At least they would have protected me from the fae… But how could I have known that She would be interested in me? Who could possibly have guessed that Dr. Varian was a servant of the fae?

  I didn’t even write to my parents in the past few weeks… What a son I am… dying so abruptly. What did I even do to deserve such a fate… Will anyone remember me?

  Quetzalcoatl? What a joke. He can’t even keep a kid like me alive…

  Aurelius lamented his life, his regrets, his anger.

  From within his darkest thoughts, a familiar voice rang out.

  “I see that you’ve yet to change your attitude. To be fair, I can't expect miracles from a human in such little time.”

  The voice brought Aurelius’s groggy, muddled mind back into focus.

  He acutely sensed the sharp, but blurry pain in his wrists. A phantom-like pain that refused to disappear.

  Impossible. How can I… feel? And how was this asshole talking to him… Again?

  “My goodness, did your parents raise you with a rag in your mouth? Absolutely abhorrent.” The voice complained. His smooth commanding words enunciated themselves within, and around Aurelius’s mind.

  Aurelius felt an urge to collapse in on himself. Why was he so careless with his thoughts around gods? Was he really that fond of flirting with divine punishment?

  Still not fully alert from his death, Aurelius wondered deliriously where he was. How was He speaking to him once more? The Fae Queen and Her divine kingdom was not so easily breached. Even gods could not hope to influence them. That was a rule!

  The voice drifted once more, measured, playful and impossibly silky.

  “I have a task for you.”

  Then, He materialised.

  ???

  Aurelius felt himself turn corporeal. His pain dissolved into a dull ache, and his eyes could see the world once again.

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  Mana surged through his body, his soul rebinding itself to its vessel. His arms felt whole once more, his thighs solid, and his torso firm again. His newly formed eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of his surroundings, and outlined a lean, sharply dressed man.

  His pointed ears served to accentuate His handsome, chiseled features. The depths of his pitch black irises seemed endless, the colour of cosmos.

  Despite the casual look that he wore, there was immense pressure emanating from the man. He wore a magician’s suit, striped with vertical white lines. This surprisingly modern and trendy get-up smoothed his ancient demeanour into an interesting blend of the times.

  “A task?” Aurelius asked.

  “Yep.”

  “What task do you have for me, o, honourable Quetzalcoatl?”

  “I want you to kill me”

  A long silence filled the air, consisting of a now very very wide awake Aurelius and a patiently waiting god.

  It was Quetzalcoatl who broke the silence.

  “Do you know of my creation?” He asked.

  OF COURSE I DON’T. WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT? Aurelius thought indignantly.

  “...I am the son of elves, birthed to preserve life on this planet.”

  Suddenly, the void around them shifted and twisted, revealing illusory images all around them. The clouds brushed against their feet as the two figures hovered over the world. The sun cast its light beautifully over the ocean of clouds that drifted past, colouring them orange.

  Then the world descended all around them. The clouds parted for them as they moved past towards a view of a vast land dotted with forests and mountains.

  Creatures that Aurelius could not recognise soared the skies of this land, and flocks of strange 6 legged creatures scuttled in herds across the land.

  This sudden change in his surroundings made bile form in the back of Aurelius’s throat and his head spin. Motion sickness!

  “Don’t vomit.” He commanded sharply, His judgemental eyes casting a glare at Aurelius.

  Forcing down his vomit, Aurelius swept his gaze about his surroundings in a bid to distract himself.

  It seemed to be a village square, packed systemetically with people… no… elves!

  Rhythmic drumbeats resonated within his ears, and the mysterious chanting coated his ears thickly. The sound was solemn, focused and soothing.

  Aurelius could feel himself drawn into its rhythm, and he felt a vague presence of magic within their words.

  A distant roar snapped Aurelius out of his loss into the chanting, and his eyes turned to gaze into the distance, curious as to what would make such a noise.

  This was a terrible mistake.

  His eyeballs seemed to light aflame, his brain pierced with an indescribable heat, and his skin felt the pain of boiling blood through his veins.

  It was a towering Dragon. A True Dragon. The First divine blessing upon teotlcan.

  It was on a rampage, with Their madness palpable even to Aurelius who stood tens of kilometers away.

  Magma spewed up into the air where it walked, the air itself lit on fire where it breathed, mountains crumbled and melted under its influence.

  Its size rivaled mountains, and the shapes that made up Its body, Its wings, Its tail seemed impossible, non-euclidean and godly.

  It was calamity personified.

  Aurelius withdrew his gaze as quickly as his reflexes allowed him to. Horror gripped his heart, and images of destruction, and overwhelming power imprinted in his mind with a tenacious grip.

  His body felt the heat still etched within himself, and his eyes briefly lost their vision, as if it had actually been burnt out of his sockets.

  Despite this, the chanting of the elves never let up. The drumbeats steady and their voices unwavering.

  In the core of the elven ritual was a metallic, eleven corpse. Precise geometric shapes were inlaid onto it with a rich, red metal. Even at one glance, Aurelius could tell that it was ignivite, and of an impossible purity.

  The chanting reached a fever, and a faint glow started to emanate from the crowd.

  Each face held determination, fearlessness, pride. Regardless of youth or age, every face shared a deep wariness, one that seemed to bubble from their heart. But most of all, their eyes were alight in a look of hope.

  With the last drumbeat, a deep, dark, crimson line appeared simultaneously on all of their necks.