I was falling from Eden.
Time felt like it had slowed down. A thousand thoughts came to my mind. I was angry at the injustice, but at that moment, I felt like giving up.
I had heard about the Judgement in the myths and legends, when the demons were banished from Eden. It was invoked once again now, to cast me out.
'Mother,' I spoke loudly using lifeforce, ensuring the world barrier wouldn't stop my voice from reaching her. 'Is this the punishment you chose for me?' I waited desperately for an answer. 'Talk to me! Just once... Please...' In her eyes, what I did at Gehenna was an unforgiveable sin. But I was angry, and in pain. Too bad I ultimately failed in eradicating them. Mother recalled me by force. She had always been kind—even to pests that don't deserve it.
After she stopped my rampage, she went silent. She would come around, I thought. How foolish I was. She never softened. And now I was even banished. I would never see her again, never hear her voice.
She didn't even say goodbye.
'You're wrong, Mother. I reject your Judgement. I'll stay with you.'
The punishment would be my choice. I'll merge with the Lifestream and find the eternal peace... So what if she exiled me? She'd have to welcome me in her embrace again, once I become a part of Lifestream—a part of her. I surrendered to the fall.
The wing emerged from my back, and I felt like I was flying properly again, like old times. A smile rushed to my face when I thought of the past. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I wanted to relish the cool winds blowing over my face. Their gentle whispers in my ears were like melodies I hadn't heard for years. The chains binding me to this world were burning away.
I wrapped my wing around my limbs and kissed lightly on the curve of it, thanking it for bearing my brutal use over the past years. It felt warm... A part of me wondered if it looked like a coffin from afar. My painful existence would finally end. I sealed my lifeforce, lest it save me, and waited for the impact, hoping the next life would be kinder to me, or maybe rather hoping that I'd get to be kinder. The winds ran their fingers through my hair. It got harder to breathe as I picked up speed and the air thickened...
And then, it all stopped...
The winds went silent. I couldn't sense anything. I couldn't move. All of a sudden, I was suspended in this endless world with no vectors. Time had stopped. No, the whole world had stagnated around this... Presence... It was colossal... Regal... It made me feel so weak and powerless. It was like every particle in my body was being dominated into stillness. So much for being the one everyone feared.
An image flashed in front of my eyes for a brief moment. A broken statue of a man standing in the middle of ruins, almost transparent, as if it was carved with ice. Red lightning was assaulting it endlessly. The image disappeared faster than I can take in any other detail. What was that vision?
'My foolish brother Ruklene...' a voice, amused, absolute, reverberated through that world. The voice was being hammered into my senses directly. I didn't like how intrusive it was. And that name, Ruklene. I felt like I had heard that name before... But where?
'My miserable brother Prime...' another voice responded. It felt like it was everywhere, and yet nowhere. But I was somehow sure it came from the other end, wherever that was.
'The fate promised to you is a cruel one, my little lord.'
'Still not as cruel as it has been to you, my king.'
I wanted to speak out, understand what was happening, but I couldn't. I had somehow become a forced spectator who was eavesdropping on the conversation of these godly beings. How was it happening? How do such beings even exist? I wasn't sure where i even was, if I was seeing this blackness or just couldn't open my eyes, if this was a dream or something else entirely.
'But right now, the fate is smiling at you... Look around, brother.'
'Such is your gift. It's beautiful...'
'When you meet Ender on your journey, tell him I will fulfill my promise soon, and his night is fine.'
'I did... Eldest, do you think Fourth hates us?'
'No... Never you. Not Ender. But sometimes, he does hate me...' And for a while, there was silence.
'But that's alright. Do you not hear the dirges of forgiveness he keeps singing? He has given all of us what he doesn't have, what he cannot have... Ruklene, if our fourth brother was graced by warmth rather than the ashes, he could've been the king, maybe imperfect, but more brilliant than I ever can be... I'll eternally try to renounce the exile and return the throne that was his by right.'
'O King of Kindness, you've only been generous, always, to us, to him, even granted him absolution. You're the hero he admires the most. May your grace reign eternal... Long... Live... The King!'
Those last words echoed so violently that it felt like they were being written into the fabrics of reality. And the next instant, the presence receded, just the way it came. I could feel the gears of the world turning, shattering the invisible glass of stagnation into little shreds. And I was falling again, but I heard them again, bickering?
'Ruklene, want to see me make Fourth mad?'
'And how would you do that?'
'Stay...'
'Pft... for a being defined by kindness, you're too brutal.'
'Haha! I know right. That's what he gets for saying those cheezy lines!'