Gods of Malcea ✔️

O N E

"Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be change."

-Xamdú

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Karos could tell by the small rays of light peeking up against the rocks, the sun had risen. It was only a matter of time. Only what worried him was not the hour of high noon, but the creature with whom he shared the same three-walled, confined space.

Though he thought the foul beast was dead, he knew that they did not die as easy as he would like to think. For hours, for what seemed like days even, he waited for any sudden movements to come from it. However, that had caused him to grow weary.

Sweat trickled down the sides of his face as his heavy breathing grew more labored and hoarse with time. He was a dying man, but he was a man willing to die with honor. Though the thought was bitter to him, it caused a sad bout of laughter to rise from his parched throat.

His heart fell into the pits of his stomach as he noticed movement coming from its body. He heard it let out groans filled with an agony that echoed off the cave walls. After such a long period of silence, it nearly deafened him. A little wave of panic continued to rise.

Karos' eyes darted back and forth at the creature who'd seemed to have come back from the dead. He clenched down against the hilt of his sword prepared for any attacks to come from the stirring being. Soon, his injured arm rested as he noticed the blood leaking from its body.

Fields of fiery, red hair covered its golden skin. Its blood ran in multiple silver streams down its arms and head, sparkling like a precious gem. His tattered cloak acted as a blanket that covered the rest of its body, so he could not see much more.

A cry of pain tore from its lips and brought Karos out of his fruitless thoughts. As it tried to rise, it fell back down with a nasty thud. The jagged rocks opened skin and made more blood spew from its delicate, human body.

He watched the creature close his fists filling them full of rocks in anger, frustrated with its incapacity to stand. It perplexed Karos to no end why he had suffered for this inhuman thing. He also wondered why and how it could look so human.

"It is a dragon," he murmured. Yet here in front of him laid a human being.

His whispered words caused the red-headed devil to turn and look at him with a glower that could rival the sun. Its fingers sank into the bed of rocks as it continued its hopeless attempts at sitting upright. All Karos could do was muster an amused smile.

It was not so fearsome when contained in something soft and fleshy instead of hard and scaly. Its wings, its horns, its gigantic size, had all become nothing more than a mere memory. In the eyes of men who had not seen the true nature of this creature, they would only see it as a man fresh out of his flower years.

As much as he wanted to help the poor thing he knew it was not as helpless as he thought. This creature was making him question things he never cared to question before and it daunted him. They were beasts. There was nothing more to them. Well, at least there had been nothing more to them. Now, not so much.

"Ach ni bal valum!" it hissed, its voice wrought in pain. It fell back down from its fifth futile effort to stand. Of all feelings to emerge from the once proud soldier of Asalph, he felt pity for the bloody thing. So the creature could feel pain.

He rose wincing at the pain going through his leg and walked closer to it. Though he wanted to know what the creature had just said, he wanted his questions answered even more. There was more to them than he could have ever imagined.