Legacy of Mayhem

Fifth fire - End Starts

Miff doesn't want to bury a star-child beneath damp dirt.

His mother had once told him that their tissues, even those of dead ones, could retain enough unstable and uncontrolled energy that it could taint a whole planet, turn it to molten lava and fire, maybe reach other celestial bodies through radiation, depending on the creature's previous power level.

I have to go back there, sweetie.

Miff sobs.

He almost drops the star-child. Ember.

It's a pretty name, Miff.

The sweeping silver plains are agitated. The whole planet is clad in an eerie quietness and Miff despises it. Despises the peaceful silence and the lack of bratty chatter.

Strong winds rush around him in wide arcs that overlap and dance and make the grass whisper. They carry the smell of poisonous water.

This planet is locked in a timeless sunset without a sun, forever illuminated by the reflected light of moons. It is surrounded by ancient barriers and is unable to harbour any life apart from the creepy grey grass.

It does not feature in any modern maps. It has no name. It can't be reached and is unable to reach out, for Miff has closed all the portals and burned all the maps in the Archive of Charts, all the papers and holograms guarded in the secret underbelly of the tallest building of the Capital. It had been easy. Ember had made it even easier, tired and careless, and leaving scorch marks all around the upper chamber.

Miff had sealed the previous portal they'd used to get off the grey planet, and used a pocket portal to flee the Tower.

So no portals, no maps, no charts, no stars near.

And not even the hum of stars can reach beyond death. Everyone knows that.

I have to go back there, sweetie. Mayhem can track those like me down, but doesn't know about you and won't be able to find you if I go. Your father's blood protects you. But I have to go back there right now, sweetie, alright? I love you, alright?

His mother's last words to him echo in his mind. They're the last ones because he'd run out of the kitchen, out of the house, before she could tell him anything else.

He'd never seen her again, never managed enough resilience to find her name on the long list of victims of the Steelers' genocide.

He'd been an extremely upset little boy who had resented his mother for leaving him.

He stops in his tracks. There. The small curve of the lone river where Ember had crouched down after they'd crossed it, and drank its water full of poison, and just frowned and said it tasted weird.

He gently lays them down near the water, then summons a big gust of wind to flatten the grass and clear a space large enough for a small pyre. He opens another pocket portal, and from it tumbles the pile of dry wood he'd stored here and there, a little at a time.

He builds the pyre, because the best way to destroy something is to turn its own self against it. De-escalate.

It is said it was duress that turned Lost-Name to madness, echoes his father's voice in his memories, its smoothly deep timbre still managing to soothe him to this day.

He has never forgotten either of his parents' voices. He can't. What else has he got?

But that's the official version, grimly adds his father's memory-voice.

You don't believe it? he'd asked, distracted, not looking up from his soup as his father tried to talk with him.

He'd been a moody adolescent who resented his father for everything wrong in the universe.