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"Ancient legends have told the story of the278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgEqOZWOVNJ
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giant wings spanning the earth and the magnificent crest rising towards the sky; myths and tales of the dark goddess who would make her agony and despair known to the skies and those who would live below the shadow of her wings. Songs tell her story, and that of the lost godling Paolgo, for whom she yearns so desperately for, enough that the sun withers and fades to reveal the moon, ripping open the Veil every night so that one day, her child may be found, and she can return to the above world."278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWP71pZiyYi
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EXCERPT PASSAGE FROM278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡigAQwdvYAJ
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THE GODLING ARCHIVES278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRgICMvjUKL
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The beasts that roamed the night were many, and you could not imagine anything worse than a man with a wolf's head lunging towards you from a darkened alley behind a tavern, teeth slick with blood and skin pink with mange. They liked the dark, dingy places, the beasts一whether it be for avoiding the human masses, or lying in wait for its next unfortunate victim.278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZNmxJXGchv
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Fenharrow didn't fancy himself a victim. He was a Godling, for the Mother's sake. But he was old, and he was starting to wear down. The joints in his body didn't seem to work like they did when he was in his prime, and his shoulders were sore as he hacked his way through the esophagus of the poor beast who had gnawed a hole in his ribs.278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmi7T0YVdKT
Again, he did not think himself a victim. But as he wiped the blood spray off of his face, and cradled his side, which wept golden-white liquid, he found himself feeling the strain of being the hunter. The dying time, the older Godlings would have him call it. When the hunters become the hunted, become prey.
He wasn't prey, not yet. But he was close.
So unbearably close.
"You are dying," his familiar purred through the night. Her smooth voice was like a slash of silk through water, folding and unfurling with the quickness of a viper. Her cat eyes peered out from the shadows of the casks to look at him, and then at the wound in his side, almost pityingly. But familiars could not feel pity, or sadness. "You won't make it another sunrise, Godling."
He sighed, long and slow. He had guessed as such, and to have her cement it meant that it was destined to happen. "I still have some time left in me. Enough to see Verona, perhaps."
"Unlikely." Her silhouette, spotted and tall, slunk out from the shadows to allow him support as he faltered. "Verona is far away, in the next town. You would do better to let me put you out of your own misery."
"Pah!" He laughed. "Like I would let a familiar like you get your grubby little paws on power like mine. No, I'll let Verona claim it. Put an end to all of this."
Fenharrow gestured to the corpse, the bloody moon above them, and the giant, sweeping wing of darkness that cast a shadow over the town in its immensity. The feathers could tickle the wind when they moved, and you could feel the earth tremble as they began their slow stretch across the world.
"You're such a fool." Her voice sounded so sad that he almost believed she was capable of such feelings. "This will never end. Not until the little godling is found."
"What could take a child from a mother like that?" Fenharrow stumbled to his feet, using his scythe as a prop, collapsing the metal blade into the staff. The Vile Mother's long, sharp sword ran parallel to the wing spread over them, the black metal sharp and threatening to slice open the sky. "A goddess, no less. It had to have been planned. Coordinated, by other gods. Don't you think?"
She would have thought him a mad, raving lunatic like the first Godling, but the intense, gnawing suspicions made her head hurt. Perhaps he was not such a lunatic after all. "That would be impossible. Why would the other gods choose their own in the hopes to help find Paoglo, then, if that were true?"
They made a slow turn around the corner, the she-cat watching his every step. He swayed and swooned, but never fell, his scythe keeping his weight steady.
"Did you ever think that it's all one big ruse? A guise to keep her wrath from reaching them?"
"No." She pinned her ears to her head. "No, I did not."
They stopped in front of a cemetary, littered with cracked and neglegted gravestones and mountains of bodies wrapped in the white sheets of the priests. Beasts scoured the bodies for fresh or rancid meat, tearing open the burial shrouds and devouring the dead whole. Familiars did the same thing, and yet she found herself disturbed by the entire display, edging sidewise to avoid Fenharrow's foot.
"Almost midnight." The pocketwatch he had fished out of his bloody pocket was silver and old, rusted with old blood and turned an odd orange from repeated exposure to the beasts insides. The hand stopped ticking right before the final seconds to the witching hour, blood creeping through the edges and staining the once white porcelain red. "Damn thing. Need to get a new one."
The she-cat settled on her haunches, uneasy, as a dark wing started to ascend into the sky. She was never comfortable with this hour in the mortal world, feeling the chill of the Vile Mother's breath upon her spine as if she was standing right behind her.
"You won't make it to find another like that," she warned. She bared her dagger teeth at him to make the point stick. "You'll be dying soon."
But the night kept him from seeing her fangs, or he was just too far gone to see properly, as he settled down beneath a tree, waiting silently for the inevitable. She could smell that he would not be giving up for some time一he was stubborn, even in death一perhaps well into the evening of the next day, if he could fight off the blood loss that quickly.
Even the gods knew he couldn't.
He held the pocket watch in one hand, still open to display the face. The numbers were slowly starting to smear and become illegible, and she turned her head from him, ears back and tail low.
There was no saving him.
"Goodbye, Master Fenharrow." His eyes were closed, drenched in the shadow of the Vile Mother's great wing, but he still breathed, still bled, as she faded into the darkness of the Void, tears of blood stinging her luminous cat eyes. "I hope you found your worth in this world. You won't be fated to see the next."
The covenant snapped, their bond thoroughly sheared from existence. There was no more Fenharrow and Igni, no more prowling the night and scouring the world for Paoglo, and yet... Yet she felt him, still, even as the Vile Mother began to scream towards the moon, her cry mournful and gut wrenching. Felt his heart lurch frantically to keep up with the blood his body was losing.
She could not leave him to die alone, like every other godling who had died before him in her service. He was different一he was Fenharrow. He was human.
So as the Vile Mother wept, and a new day began, Igni the Dark Cat kept silent vigil over her former master... Until his very last breath.278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4SYwB9FkzK
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And even then, as she passed on to a new godling, a new master, she swore she could still feel his presence in her little beastly heart, like someone else had taken up his legacy.278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfQ9C2Yo6ss
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Taken up the torch to end the world.278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmu2ViHKCYP
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