Dance Of The Damned: The Dawn Gods War

Chapter 5: full chapter

Dreams transcend space and time. They transform the past into the present. Dreams often expose probability. Time is a wave, forever crashing against the cliffs of the possible. The present is the foam , the release of power at the point of the crash.

Dreams can draw from the fractal madness of was, is, and could have been.

Badbh dreamed. Remembering a time when she had been whole. When she had been CathBadua. When she’d still had her wings, and her other half, Badua, the Draeg. A time when they had been one, and had flown with their iridescent wings. A time before madness, before rage, before the endless living nightmare of war.

Catha poised on the cliffs edge. Wings extended, watching Badua frolick, barrel rolls, loops , long ululations of Joy. The Afternoon sun had warmed the cliff nicely. A brisk updraft flowed.

AOS SIDHE are gliders. Their wings were designed for gliding on the updrafts. A compliment to their bonding with the Draeg. The creators had mingled the genes of both species in creating the bond between Aos Sidhe and Draeg.

Laughing, Catha launched, leaping into the void. The updrafts caught her rainbow hued wings. Up, up she flew, free and laughing.

“Badua, we are free!!!” Badua snorted a flame. Laughing with his soul bond. “Tis about time you joined me!” They flew together, sky dancing on the warm air. Below the mirror sea flashed, shimmering with fiery opalescence. Minds linked the duo danced. Life could not be better.

The dream memory of freedom, flight and joy was not a favorite for Badbh. Beginning to end she knew the ending. In her sleep tears fell. The ending awaiting and the beginning of the long fall into hell.

Change is always sudden, usually brutal and uncaring. This change brought nothing good. It did birth a new thing though. Pain, madness, rage, and terror. Horrifying new things never known before. Never imagined.

The change began with fire. A rain of fire in the skies. Catha and Badua watched in awe the sight was beautifully spectacular. It was Badua that understood the danger first. The death cries screamed, broadcast by his brethren stunned him momentarily. Had he not been in a glide already he would have forgotten to flap his wings. Shocked Badua scanned the horizons. There in the distance a wall of fire and dust that spanned earth and sky was rushing towards them.

Badua only had time to realize that danger approached before it struck. Catha , herself stunned by the mental howls was caught unaware.

A shock wave from a series of kinetic strikes of multiple meteor impacts struck. As Badua desperately tried to reach Catha , he watched as the wall of fire and dust took her. The heat wave igniting Catha’s beautiful wings, nano seconds later the shock wave ripped those wings from young Catha’s back. Blood sprayed, she screamed tumbling, reduced to mere debris on the terrible wind of change.

Somehow Badua writhed the short distance to reach her. Himself turned to a leaf on the breeze. Grasping her close Badua managed to wrap his great wings around her, cradling her screaming, bleeding , burning body tight.

The shockwave carried them at supersonic speed until they slammed into Olympus. The tallest peak on Falias. The largest extinct volcano in the Solar system.

Olympus, the central home of the Aos Sidhe, palace and grand capitol of Falias had been scoured clean down to the basalt.

Catha awoke to agony. Burned, broken, bleeding, alone. Badua had sheltered her, protected her as best as he could. Catha wept from the pain, confused by the silence in her mind. Catha had not been alone in her mind in decades, not since Badua had called to her and they had bonded. Two minds, two beings, became one soul.

Slowly she crawled out of Badua's embrace, calling to him with mind and voice. There was only silence. A void where he had been within her. On burn wounded hands and knees she scrambled crying out for him. Until she saw him. What ruins remained. He was clearly dead, destroyed in the preservation of her. She heard screaming, realizing it was she herself screaming. Madness was born. Rage was birthed. Chaos reigned within her.

Llew, then, still called by his birth name Nodens, found her, kneeling amongst the ruin of Badua, crying and screaming in soul pain and rage. Tenderly he carried her to the waiting drop ship. Their world was burned, those that remained labored in despair seeking out those few survivors.

There were no grown Draeg left on Falias. No cities stood. No surface structures remained at all. Orbital installations were gone as well. The three moons, now only fragments of two.

Few Sos Sidhe had survived the bombardment. No one had expected anything like it. There had not been any attempts at a defense. Not that it would have mattered much at all. The Fomorii treachery had been a total shock and surprise. In one act of treachery two worlds had been destroyed. Billions murdered. One entire species, eradicated. The home world of the Aos Sidhe turned into scattering orbital rubble. Falias, burned and blasted. Seas boiled. Mountains crushed.

Badbh awoke. Wiped the bloody tears from her eyes and filed away the dream deep into that mental box she kept her pain in. Best to forget what had been. Who she had been. Best to forget her first self death and rebirth. She dressed, donning her armor and weapons. She sensed her sisters, far away, busy with the hunt.

Badbh was hungry. What she truly hungered for could never be again. Badbh hungered for her lost self. Quickly she emptied the silver pitcher of mead. Eating would soothe her, she hoped in vain. Calling for her body servants , snapping instructions, she took up another pitcher of winter mead.

The table awaited her pleasure.

Humans think in three dimensions. Four if one rates memory as a directional vector. Or would it be a field? What exists behind the Wave collapse? Now, is the point of collapse. Behind the Wave is the past, which is in effect memory.

Does that mean the Space of Space-Time is memory?

It was an old argument. Two of the three in Llew's head continued the discussion. Llew ignored them, quirked a mental brow-thought at the third, who chose silence.

Ahhhch!

Again, Humans actively experience only three dimensions of perception and thought in any moment of experience.

Aos Sidhe however experience several more aspects of dimensional perception. Probability being one of them. Sensitivity to a wide range of electromagnetic frequencies, seeing into the radio frequencies, infrared, ultraviolet, sensing fields, magnetic, gravitic, and others humans have no words for.

There's some fancy mathematics that attempt to define them. However no humans have mastered the eloquence of the mathematic languages of equations to express the elegant poetry in a truly relatable lyrical manner.

Poetry, it all boils down to poetry.

The Universe sings. It is the music of existence of life.

And life sings as well.

The two whirl about in the infinite dance of the finite music.

Everything in space and time is fallen. Damned to be exact. It is all a dance of the damned.

Live long enough and the patterns are learned. The thing about patterns is, that they are patterns. Patterns mean repetition. One can learn the patterns and accurately predict what the patterns result in. Prescient perception in a sense. Then pesky chaotic people make choices and screw everything up.

Random internal dialogue as usual while going through the necessary motions of existence.

Roses! They love roses. Llew paused looking over the delicate five leaved flowers. Tiny thorns abounded, glistening with dew drops the thorns had captured. Beautiful, draped in thorns and liquid diamonds.

Enjoying the quiet beauty. The tiny cascading rainbow flames of the Flowers aura. Reflecting, dancing in and among the drops of liquid diamonds. Yes the intricate beauty suits the Morrigna, gorgeous, crowned in flames and jewels wreathed in thorns. Who couldn't adore that?

Screams of pain and terror broke the silence. Breakfast is served! Smiling Llew moved to join in the feast.

Badbh sat at the polished granite table drinking from the writhing body. Casually tearing bits of the flailing extremities off, tossing them to the well disciplined Wolfhounds that gulped down the tasty treats. Achh! The woman is a beautiful terror!

Llew dared not show the barest hint of his fascination. Badbh would scorn him more than her usual, viewing such as weakness. Which was wrong. Llew's fascinating obsession, his intoxication with her fueled his strength. The only thing keeping Llew intact amongst the god slayers that fought for control continually was his purpose. Llew's purpose is Badbh. Love of Badbh. Love for Badbh. Love, for his wife.

A love Llew would do anything for including murder his own soul.

Sighing internally Llew blazed with his hunger for her. Better that she view it as joy from the feast. Settling in at the stone table Llew grasped a waiting morsel, easily snapping the bones of flailing arms and legs, settling in for breakfast himself.

Stone was the best dinning surface. The human servants could easily clean up the mess. Wood , while beautiful tended to stain and carry the decaying stench of blood and fluids. Better that wood be used for ornamentation, writing tables and such. Likewise for floors. Stone is much easier to keep tidy and clean.

The Dawn burned across the skies. Shadows danced. Gazing at the morning Llew was reminded of her anew. Love is an insane complication. At least, it can never be boring!