The Divine Gambit Ch. 08

In nearly half, the light flickered and faded like before, quickly fading from sight. The light flickered and dimmed in another third, struggling for an eon before eventually disappearing. The presence dismissed those that had vanished and let me observe the remaining stars.

In many, the dragon was gone. The objects were weathered and damaged, and the complete set of seven was only present in a handful of the remaining presented stars. Precious few showed the dragon with all the objects; in those, the dragon was missing limbs, and the objects were visually damaged. It was a harrowing sight.

In several views, the star had curdled and turned black without fading. It was glowing with darkness, destroying light that approached. In these, the dragon remained, but the objects were all universally gone. The dragon had a crown upon its head, but the crown was barbed at both the top and bottom. It dug into the dragon's skull, leaving horrid, oozing open wounds in its wake.

The presence restored my original vision, the fragments conjoining into a blurry view of the stars. The half-dragon man sat on his star, the only one pristine and in focus. The presence touched him, and he again shifted to the full dragon, his body now encircling the star as he lay around it. The presence gestured at the other stars, and many came into focus. Some had other, blurry, imperceptible beings adorning them. The ones that lacked a being began to dim, one by one fading from view entirely. Eventually, they were all gone, and the stars with beings near them began fading, some quickly, some eternally battling to remain lit.

The presence shifted the scene before me. Gone were the stars. Alone now, the presence and the half-dragon man sat together, hand in hand. They waited an eternity.

The lines between them blurred. The incorporeal ether of the presence joined with the man, and he became a dragon. The presence was destroyed as an entity, but a fragment remained inside the man.

My vision shifted again and returned to nothingness. The nothingness of the void had reclaimed me. The presence was the only piece of information I retained, omnipresent in the cacophony of silence. It remained connected to me, and its emotions returned. It begged for permission, for acceptance, for action. It apologized, regretted that its hand was forced, but was determined to do what it needed. It waited, decades passing while I contemplated what it was conveying.

I accepted.

The presence reached me again and engulfed me in its essence. There was nothing beyond the presence. The moment was permanent.

And then it was over, and the red dragon man was alone in the void, a trinket in the dragon's heart all that remained of the presence.