u/Key_Dimension9731

Slumbering for ages, he dreamt. Dreaming of ages past. When he and his kin reigned as gods. Worship and fear were his due. All of existence his to dominate. Mind, body, and will.

Slumbering for ages, he dreamt. Memories of ages past. When he and his kind strode the Earth, titans among lesser creatures. And he was their king. Undefeated, but not unchallenged. Purposeful, he ruled.

Eons he and his kin had dominated the small orb. Until that day. He and his kin died. Locked and sealed away. Beyond sight and memory of lesser beings. Yet he remained, eternal he lay, dreaming.

King he was, until the the sky rained down. His kind fell, one after another. Slain, broken, chained. Until the king stood alone against the stars. His defiance a terrible sound upon the Earth. And, with victory, he slumbered.

Ages he slept. Ageless he waited. For again would come those who would worship him. Who would call to him. And Man did so, and he stirred. For that which can eternal lie, death is not the end.

Ages he slept. In the depths, dreaming of ancient skies. Until a new challenge came. Man and its pale imitation of his fire. And once again he strode the land, a king undefeated, feared by man and beast.

They called to him, to wake him from his slumbering dreams. To reach out to the minds of the world. Chaos was the lord of the day, and he was the Chaos. As the Earth shook, he rose from the depths. But he was not alone. In the distance a terrible fire burned, drawing him to it.

The king felt it. From the south. The spawn of stars who struck down his kin. Who slew the queen. Who fell the winged fire. Who devoured the armored one. And rage filled his heart, and his mind was consumed with the coming battle.

Slimy and squelching he pulled himself from the sea. The walking fire moved across the land, its roar echoed to the stars. To the heart of that which cannot die. Doom, the roar called. Doom, and death, and terror.

Long the king stared at the usurper. Committing to memory every terrible feature of its changing form. As his hatred grew, so too did the fire. Crackling blue lighting, dancing about the king. He would brook no pretender to his title, his world.

Long the dead god stared at the king. It had slain his brethren. The golden dragon, the clawed terror, the crystalline death. He would break the king. Devour his mind. His body. His soul. He would call others of his kin from beyond the stars. For no being of flesh can contend with a god.

The world fell silent. Fearing to breathe. For man could not war against the titan king or the dead god. Man could only watch, and know dread.

The king felt a tickle in his mind. As if the thing's writhing tentacles had snaked its way into his head. The tickle sparked something akin to fear in the king. An altogether unknown feeling. He liked it not, and his rage grew. And with his rage the fire. A rising crescendo of fury more terrible than the heart of a sun.

The god knew triumph. He was in the mind of the king. He would devour it. Break it. Ruin it. And in its blind arrogance, it didn't see the fire. No one could truly defeat a god, he believed. And god he was! Striding towards the king he stretched out his claws, tentacles writhing in anticipation. At the last, too late, he saw the king.

The king's saurian eyes filled with malice. Fire danced in the king's heart. Fire burst forth. The writhing god was engulfed. On came the blaze, as unending as the king's fury. A fire so terrible as to poison the very earth around it. A fire beating at the heart of the king, as it beats in the heart of the Sun.

The god knew pain. And with pain came fear. An old paean to his godhood came back to him, mockingly. As if flown there on the wings of some bright angel, terrible and beautiful to behold, “That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even the deathless may die.” Fear it knew. And then it knew no more.

The king stood, alone, his fire burning still in his heart, but blowing away upon the wind where the so-called god had stood. The king knew victory. And his roar to the stars was a challenge. A clarion call to the void. It spoke of the rage of the king. The death of a god. After eons, countless ages of the Earth, undefeated. Undisputed. And the king would brook no challengers.

And with grim purpose, he strode away.

Note: I am not sure which flair is appropriate for this. If there is a better option, i'll gladly add/change it.

The mother and the child stared out from their doorway as the sun set. The child was hungry. It had been two days since their last meal. Food was growing scarce as the weather grew colder. If they didn’t find a source to see them through winter they would have to move.

The child understood why they couldn’t look for food during the day, but still wanted nothing more than to go and play in the soft afternoon sun. But the last time the child had ventured out in the light, a terrible beast had charged from the forest. It would have been devoured if not for the father. The father had run from the safety of their home and attacked the beast. The child was able to escape, to run back to the mother’s side. But the father was dragged off, screaming into the shadowed eaves of the forest. They heard him scream for hours, after that, before the monster devoured him.

Once there had been a community there, on the edge of the forest. The child’s extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandparents. Other families, too, and the occasional wanderer settled down, telling tales of the dangers of the trail, of beasts and monsters stalking unwary travelers. Of the Stalking ones, eyes glowing in the shadows, to the shrieking fliers, to the terrible dragons. But spoken of with the most dread were the Silent Ones.

No one the child had ever known had ever seen one. The child’s grandfather told of how, when his grandfather was old, he had been out at dusk, gathering crops. In those days, the fields were full of grain and healthy, enough to support ten times the number families there were. But it mattered not, when the child’s grandfather had turned his back, a Silent One had taken the grandfather’s grandfather. No tracks, no sound. No abundance of food. When the Silent Ones struck, there would only be weeping for a lost loved one. No actions or prayers of the people would deter the Silent ones.

The gods had protected the people in those days, its mother would tell him. They caused the healthy rains to fall and the crops to grow. They protected the people from the beasts and monsters of the forest. Their temple was far from the community, and only the most desperate went to seek the intercession of the gods directly. Some returned with tales of signs and wonders witnessed in the temple, others returned with some other boon from the gods, maybe a new kind of food, or supplies enough to see the community through the cold times.

The temple of the gods had always been bright and full of noise in those days, its mother said. A beacon in the night, a reminder that the people were safe, were loved, as long as they kept to the Ways. The Ways were old, older than the memory of the grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfathers. They were simple, they kept the people safe. Do not trouble the gods. Do not tempt the beasts of the forest. All bounties of the gods are to be shared with the people.

Now the fields lay empty and fallow. As the seasons grew lean, the beasts seemed to grow more ravenous as well. Soon it was too dangerous to leave by day or by night, only in the dusk and dawn hours was it safe, when the beasts were groggy, and the shadows danced, giving the child and the mother places to hide.

After the father died, the mother had decided the only choice left was to plead to the gods for help. Maybe they could figure out how they had angered the gods and get them bless the fields again, to protect them from the beasts. At dusk, they had set out, and arriving at the temple they found it quiet and dark. There were no lights, no sound. No voices boomed with command, neither blessings nor curses fell upon them. The gods, it seemed, had departed the temple.

As they left to hurry to the safety of their home, they heard, to their amazement, the voice of the gods. Turning back they looked to the roof the temple, hoping to see one of the gods waiting to pour out a blessing upon them. Instead, a Deceiver stood, cloaked in darkness. It spoke again in the strange words of the gods, and then laughed its raucous laugh. The malevolence of its gaze followed the mother and the child all the way back to their home.

So now they had only one option left. The Ways no longer held meaning, the gods had abandoned them. The forest was their only hope.

Soon the mother called for the child to follow, the time had come. The mother was desperate for food to feed herself and her child. She remembered a tree, deep in the forest, from before the lean times, that bore sweet fruit and wholesome nuts. The fruit, she said, would last through many seasons and keep them safe through the cold and lean times. And in spring, maybe, they would find the ground bore a better crop.

Deep into the forest they traveled. Keeping careful watch for the stalking ones and the dragons. As they went deeper in, the mother whispered stories of the old days. Of the quick ones who would drag them from their homes, of the hunters that chased the quick ones, of the great shaggy ones that ignored them, but in their passing left a bounty to feed the people. None had been seen since the grandfather’s grandfather’s time.

Soon, they found the tree. It, like all else had become lean and withered in these hard times. Yet, fruit and nuts remained. They gathered all they could carry, and began the mad dash to home, to safety. As they ran the darkness seemed to grow around them. A long low sound carried on the growing night. Faster, the mother warned the child. That sound, she warned, meant death. Always it meant death. When it echoed in the night, a member of the community would disappear, and sometimes, days later, they would find the bones of the fallen, twisted and broken.

Nearly home, the mother dropped the precious food she was carrying. RUN! She cried to her child, Get home, now! And off she ran back towards the forest. The child had learned after the father’s death to do as instructed. The child ran, and dove into the home as quickly as it could. Turning, its mother was gone. The food lay spilled about the ground. The child was alone.

The next morning, in early hours, the child dashed out quickly, grabbing the food the mother had dropped. The child was sad, afraid, but the hunger in its stomach drove it on. It had some now, enough to last a few days, a week or two if it ate as little as possible.

In time, the food ran out, and it must go out and seek more. The child remembered the way to fruit tree. It would have to risk a trip, it needed more. It would need to go multiple days, it had to lay enough food aside before the snows began to fall.

So as the child set off into the shadows of the wood, one of the stalkers struck, quick as lightning, it was upon the child. But before it could devour the child, fortune reared in the shape of a terrible dragon. It struck, sinking its teeth deep into the body of the stalker. Soon, it had devoured the stalker. The child cowered low, sure its death was at hand. The dragon cast one baleful yellow eye upon the child, and left it there, not worthy of its time after having a much grander meal.

All alone now, night had fallen. The child, fear around it, tentatively made its way to the fruit tree. If it didn’t find food, it would die.

In the clearing it saw the tree, and heard the low long sound again. It echoed among the trees. There was no one else for that sound of doom to toll for. And the child saw it. The first and only of his community to ever lays eyes upon it. A silent one. Terrible, bigger than the dragon that had devoured the stalker. It regarded the child, blinking slowly, staring down from the upper branches of the great fruit tree. Silently, it leapt from the tree. The child closed its eyes. The end was swift.

The Silent One carried the child’s lifeless remains home. It was small, barely any meat upon it. And the Silent One was so very hungry. But the meal was not for it, for it must feed its child. And as its child ate, it recounted tales of the old days, when the gods strode the land, and brought forth a bounty of prey for the Stalkers, the Dragons, and the Quick Ones. Then, one day, the gods vanished, and with them the Hunters. And after them, the Shaggy Ones vanished into the earth, and came forth no more. And now, no bounty of prey was called, for the gods turned not the ground. The Quick Ones left, seeking a future elsewhere. The stalkers and the dragons remained, feeding on all they could catch and devour, as they had always done, as was their nature. But the Silent Ones understood that that Quick Ones would find no relief elsewhere, that the shaggy ones would find no salvation in their deep homes. That the Stalkers and the Dragons would eat each other until they were no more. And, alone, the Silent Ones would remain, the last, the final.

And the lonely hoot of an owl echoed across the silent fields.