The Dance Of The Damned:The Dawn Gods War

Raven Dancer

Catha lived in the world of dreams and flames. Fury and sorrows fueling the fires. Neither awake nor unconscious wandering through some other when lost in some other where. For an age of ages she had been there alone. Neither living or dying.

In this other where, some when, Catha still had her wings. That fact often confused her because she continually relived the agony of tumbling through the raging firestorm, burning, bleeding those same wings torn away in ashes and flames. In this other place, memory and dream were a synchronicity of was and will be. In the other when Catha was still free, whole, flying over the mirror sea. Badua singing, teasing her. Taunting her about Nodens. Endless repeating joy turned to horror. Her laughter consumed by sudden screams of terror and fury, howling agony and fear.the cold silence. A black nothing, realm of pain.

Distant whispers had called, caressing her tormented soul with promises. Still, Catha had been there alone. Until a new now emerged. A presence of lightning and thunder, a voice drenched in echoes of promise fell into this place.

He had come! He was here, now, then, would be, is. Time exists in a singularity in this place. Was, is, will be, could be, were syncretized into a state of being. Nodens , had kept his paths. He had come to her, for her. He was here! Faithful he had followed her even here in this other when, this realm of death.

Nodens drifted alone, angry at himself for his arrogant stupidity. Start to finish the entire debacle had been his idea, his plan and his current demise. Mind active, body unconscious, Nodens knew approximately where he was, why and how. The knowledge was not comforting. For Nodens, the other when was a dark and cold realm of silence save for his thoughts.

Regenerative stasis is an unpleasant state. Aware, alone, no frame of reference for anything other than thought. Unless of course, one were not alone.

It is a truism that cold seeks warmth. One need only be in a drafty building during winter to experience that truth. The same can be said of the other when.

Nodens had thought it was a place void of direction until he sensed movement. As if he were drifting on unseen currents. His awareness of darkness began to fade into a gray nothing. The gray gradually fading into light. Flames, the nothing became a realm of fire. A strange fire that did not burn yet brought a sense of warmth.

There was laughter. A fierce familiar embrace. Nodens found Catha in his arms.