[Manticore]

The seasons are changing again. How invigorating, to see the shift between winter and spring, the blistering heat of summer that reminds him of home, the crisp bite of autumn. Time seemed to hold still in the valley. It was hot, and the sun baked their stories into the stone. Beyond the maze, nobody’s story left much of an imprint. The rain washed the etchings away and ice turned carvings to rubble. There was a fresh start around every corner and that was refreshing.

Still, Manticore knows the importance of history. He returns to where it started. No, not to Oukoku-Kai. That may be where he took his first steps, but this new chapter in his destiny started not in a forest backlit by flames but instead beside a corpse. He traces the threads and he returns. He remembered, not because he had to, but because he wanted to.

In the dying sunlight of a—what season was it now? He’s lost track—day, he settles behind the one forgotten by all but him. The bones lay bleached—on them grows lichen and moss, opportunistic life creeping in on a titan and hoping to pull life and marrow from within this shell, but. Ah, but. They, too, would soon be choked out by the leviathan. Oh, how it had grown. Its thorns wrapped itself around the trees and the roses reached desperately for the sun. He should have known. He knew a sign when he saw it.

He lowers his head and murmurs a prayer. Not to this carcass of cracking bones, nor to the roses that grew vivaciously from the calcium it had left to give. No. He sings a psalm to Chinensis. The leviathan of red roses listens, and soon the sun sets and leaves them to their business. You could have done so much more, he had chastised the titan when it was young. Now it grew, and the life around it withered and quaked in its presence. He sees he still has something to learn. He is but a boy in this world, he knows that now. He has learned much yet there is always more to learn.

“I ask for your forgiveness, he intones, his eyes not on the serpentine wind of thorny vines but on the leaf litter of the forest floor. “I did not understand why you left. Now I do.” He seeks truth, like his Father before him sought something beyond the heavy, aching burn of the valley. He had been rash before, but forbidden fruit tasted so sweet on his tongue—Gods forgive him, his lust for knowledge never changed.

This beast before him, construct of bone and stem, was not his Father. But if it was not his spirit he did not know what was. We cling to idols even now. It’s been so long.

He does not ask for anything else. He knew he asked much already, but if those like him could not be forgiven their flights of fancy then he knew not what would become of lesser men. He was a child of gods—if he could not question, WHO COULD?

No one, he knows, and he mutters a prayer before falling to silence. He sits for a long time. The time passes and he lets it. He knows this thing, this horrific sign in the woods—it would invigorate him, and like foolish men seeking the Fountain of Youth he waits, lapping at the edges of the water. Deliver him, and unto his eyes carve the proper path. A holy war brewed, and he would read between the lines of their sacred doctrines if it meant he did what was right.

(Being right meant he would win, of course.)

In the darkness, something changes. He’s not sure what, but his body is, fur prickling as his skin ripples with goosebumps. He lifts his eyes to the leviathan backlit by the soft silver light of the moon. Oh, how black the roses turned at eventide. His breath catches and he finds himself compelled to rise. To turn around. There is something there, drawing him onward, a string tied tightly around his heart—and so he follows it into the darkness.

In the pitch, he whispers—lesser beings would feel foolish, but he does not—“Father?”

[Neriminda]

Roses all withered. Individual stars blinked out. A body more damaged than can be remedied died and ceased to be.

Everything alive was humbled by their one connecting thread that was the knowledge they would not always be.

But not the He, or the She, or the It that once walked the earth as Neriminda. Like a phoenix, they had always returned, with only the different names and skins to distinguish them. They were Chinensis, who gifted to wolves reason and understanding. Chinensis, who in its first lifetime had been born with eyes like rubies. Chinensis, of all of the seas.

He'd been Chinensis, but Chinensis had not been Neriminda. In a way, he was not so different from those withering roses, revered as a god or not. Some roses were rooted up and trampled by some destructive act. Others simply faded naturally, from buds or as blooming adults. That was not the important part. Chinensis was worth a thousand Nerimindas, just as Neriminda was worth a thousand of his former subjects and all that they had in their brief existences.

What then was the child of a demigod worth? It was worth asking, wasn't it? Neriminda had spent years dividing his own kind down to the prizes each part could fetch. Why not his children? He'd know why. It had burned him to ashes, in the end. It's a little difficult to forget something like that.

The shrine smelled sweet, especially at this hour, just shy of being cloying. Their petals seemed to shiver. Pollen grains rose into the air, eye-watering. Manticore, has something heard your prayers...?

He breathes hard against the veil and speaks honeyed words to his son, who might hear him, if he listened like he'd never quite listened before.

F or gi ven

To describe it as a voice would not be apt. There was no word or spectrum for a sound like this. The language was sensed as much as heard.

Then, what he'd always called the boy.

Manticore.

[Manticore]

Light filtered, clean and bright, through the gaps left by the rose’s conquest. It dappled the forest floor with little silver fish. He watches them dance and dive beneath the leaves as wind whispers through the woods, pollen drifting from petals in a way that was pretty, oh, so pretty. This was just another way for the leviathan to spread, seed sent from on high to distant lands by a willing whisper—but that had not been Oukoku-Kai, had it? No. The progeny of the valley did not leave its embrace. If they did… if they did…

They died. Isn’t that the scripture? Or was that a twisted word written on a crooked spine? Everyone dies in the end, testifies the leviathan’s roots, bleached white and so clear in the early evening. Tears brim hot in his eyes and he blinks them away. F or gi ven, sighs something beyond comprehension, but he knows. He knows, and he bows his head, slinking slowly to the forest floor. The silver fish dart away and the light fades.

All is dark.

“Thank you, Father,” he whispers, reverent in the dawning gloom. But that wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right. The leviathan looms behind him and he knows he’s made a mistake again. He was, after all, only mortal. “No…” he murmurs, more to himself than to the evergreen spirit. Eyes of ruby. No, Nerminda had not had those.

“Chi—” he begins, uncharacteristically cutting himself short as he felt his name in the very marrow of his bones. What a strange sensation, knowing you are being addressed. His head shoots up and he looks into the darkness. There is nothing there. The leviathan is behind. Before him sprawls an uncertain wood that once felt familiar. The birds are quiet. The rabbits lay dormant in their burrows. Owls and wildcats had yet to emerge for their night hunts. All was still. All was absolutely, startlingly, eerily serene.

The son finds his voice, “Chinensis.”

Chinensis, whose vessel had fled their sacred homeland. Neriminda, who perished. Whose soul was it? What spectre called to him now? He feels like a child again, prone but alert. What lesson must he learn in this unfamiliar land? He feels the eyes of the leviathan on him, bleached chassis the vessel, thorny giant the spirit. How small they all were, in the end. How unforgivably miniscule.

“Where have you gone?” is the only thing he asks, after what feels like eons of measured silence. “The valley burns. I have looked for you,” and here you are, in the end of times. A stark reminder of home in a foreign place. Was this it? Was this what was foretold?

He wants to ask, but he bites his tongue until it bleeds. Red, so unashamedly red.

@"Kotake"