The Ascension

Whatever's left

They walked disturbed- or at least, Aster and Senya did. The gods were here now. Sometimes they weren't, but their presence was always humming in their ears.

Today would take them back to Renen. They diverged back onto the main road in anticipation for this, as even though Aster still had a hyper energy she couldn't seem to burn, she acknowledged her companions need for food, water, and rest.

One time she watched Wren drink from a stream- not a particularly good idea, but they had lost the water bottle ages ago.

"You can try drinking, you know." He said.

"It's probably going to be a lot like trying to sleep. And hurt, somehow."

Aster was starting to feel jealous of the others, though. Not needing anything was rather boring, and she attracted glances from other travelers with her clothes- especially her lack of coat.

There were many travelers, but their glances were essentially meaningless. One group of three young women shivered when they saw her, and one of them offered her a blanket in a svedian accent. War refugees, most likely.

She waved them off and tried to smile. They shook their heads, and soon split off of the road towards the nearest town.

It seemed hundreds were fleeing the west and Aela- the explosion of Ae-en, after all, had done no damage to the surrounding towns but had spooked people regardless. A sacred mountain decimated by dust was never a good sign, and its cracked hollow shell was constantly in the group's field of vision.

Eventually they stopped running into travelers. It was mid-afternoon, and beginning to get hot enough that the boys took off their furry coats and hung them over their arms. As they entered the flat lands of deciduous forests, summer began to hit them full blast.

"How much longer is it again?" Wren asked wearily, waving himself with his cap.

"Not much. Just head west long enough and we ought to run into some kind of border patrol. We've already passed Ae-en, so I'd hope by night we can enter the country."

"This heat absolutely abhorrent." Senya complained. "And I've burned to death twice."

"You used to live on a tropical island."

"It wasn't tropical, thanks, but that was an implied part of the joke, yes." Senya groaned and took off his shirt.

"You're just going to get burned if you expose your skin."

"We're all going to burn."

"Don't whine."

"It is beastly hot for this time of year." Wren added.

"Just accept what you can't change and move on."

"That was pretty cryptic of you, Aster. Lost your humanity already? First you ascend beyond the realm of heat-based suffering that we mere mortals experience, then you start dispersing life advice. I fear what comes next."

"I wouldn't whine."

"Okay, but I am." Senya then looked to Wren and nodded once, exaggeratedly. "We are."

"Look, we might as well-" Aster's hearing suddenly burned out, and for a few seconds she was treated to Senya speaking coyly and Wren soundlessly laughing at it. Then there was a ringing, and her hearing returned. She looked around her rapidly, but the gods were missing.

"What?" Wren asked as Senya joined in her spinning.

"We're all going to need to tone down. Because I'm not sure what's happening, but I can feel something unpleasant on the horizon."

They continued walking, but in near silence. Occasionally, the blank-outs of sound and the ringing would return. The heat persisted even in as they entered a quiet forest. At a certain point, it no longer felt like something acceptable to joke about. It stung their eyes like an invisible mist, and even Aster was cringing.

"I want to find a vantage point." Senya said in some kind of anticipatory tone.

"Like a mountain? It's unlikely we'll find one."

"Do you think we're in Renen yet?" Wren asked.

"I think so. Laila never followed me here. That's why I stayed here for so long and thieved from that town, Noihan."

"But then where is Silan?" Aster asked. Even the presence of the god was gone.

Senya was silent.

An hour later, it turned out having a vantage point might have been a good idea. It would have given them some forewarning, at least. Because it seemed quite suddenly, really, the shift between there being nothing ahead of them and there being something.

It was dark, and it was obscured by the tree tops. There were gaps to it, but otherwise it seemed obsidian black. It was not quite still.

"That's probably..." Wren sniffed the air. "Burning."

It wasn't a fire, but Aster understood how it could be burning. It smelled like it. They had to squint their eyes to avoid invisible smoke, and the taste of char now seemed to linger in their throats.

They kept moving west, towards the thing. Renen was a country of natural mountains, and they changed their path lightly to head up one- it was still woodlands, but now they were heading up a slope. There was no path here, just thickets of thin trees to grasp while walking uphill. No one complained though. Everyone was curious what was ahead.

Though some had their guesses- "It's going to be that monster." Senya said. It didn't sound much like a guess when he said it.

"There's not much else that can appear out of nowhere and be hundreds of feet tall." Aster admitted. "But maybe it's... a spaceship. A space rock. Something related to the gods that isn't a monster."

"Your head it too focused on space. It'll be that Lailanic thing."

"Probably." Wren said. "I'd rather it wasn't though..."

Both Wren and Aster were bracing themselves for the worst when they came to the top of the skinny peak they had scaled and peered over- and at- what lay ahead of them.

It was sitting in a bed of forest like it was grass, and it was likely a sacred miracle they hadn't seen it from Aela. It was like the creature from the volcano- or the glimpses they had seen, at least. There were bald mountain heads on its back surrounded by ancient black trees still carrying needles. It had taken on a more Lailanic shape- possessing her antlers, for example- but it lacked her human like face. Instead, it had the snout of a lion.

Tusks and horns of white bone pierced through a translucent skin of pure black interlaced with veins of red, like its blood might have been fire.

It was still, but it was breathing. Alive.

And around it, past its bed of living woods, was a wasteland of ash and dust. It gazed out on its work of ruination, of fading husks of roads and what may have been- or were- cities.

Somewhere, beyond their sight but within its, was Baased. And there was no need to waste time hoping it had been spared.