The Bane of Light

Crossover

The second we stepped through the barrier, pushing through a notably insignificant wall of frozen branches and thicket, the change was instantaneous. My breath hitched in my throat, unsure on which direction to head, my entire body being spun over and over agin. My gaze went cross eyed before I clenched my eyes shut altogether, unable to process the visions I was seeing before me. My body could not handle the change. I did not know where I was, who I was, how I was. I saw stars within the inky black of my vision, the entire world having gone black the second I stepped through.

My entire center of gravity had shifted. It had shifted from the ground to...to me, I  had realized with a jolt. The air was thick around me, swelling and gathering around, clinging to my limbs. Energy. The energy was thick, and hard to move through. It was magic in the air. Raw, undiluted magic, flooding to a vessel. It was flooding to me, I realized. I was breathing it in, soaking it into my skin. I was divine in this realm. Celestial. Immortal.

I had spent my years—my entire life—clawing for every bit of feeble magic I could get ahold of. Every crumb, every scrap, every bite, I had to fight for. I had been starving, stealing nourishment from lowly demons, when I could have just been here from the beginning. I grew up licking scraps off of sharp-edged knives, and now I had a feast before me.

Here, where the air was thick and fertile with magic. Raw magic, brushing up against my senses, yearning to be let in, to be used. The beings of this realm— they were wasteful fools. They left all this magic here for a person like me to get their hands on. A person like me, who was insatiable and starving for this kind of power. A person like me, who was ravenous. My hunger would be the end of them all.

My breaths were shallow, afraid to inhale too much at once, my lips dry and split, bleeding with every twitch and movement. Puffs of heat gathered in clouds right outside the opening of my mouth, as if it was a meeting ground, before dissipating into the frigid atmosphere around us. Finally, with my head humming in acknowledgement of all the power around me, I open my cloudy, grey eyes. My sight was murky and fogged as I stared out.

A dead winter ran rampant around me; fresh snow carpeted every surface, the trees laid bare and ripped of all their decorations, replaced instead by coats of white. Snowflakes fell silently around us, and I felt the urge to swallows them up, inhaling all the air and snow into my being.

The only thing that kept me from doing so, was the deadly silence that surrounded us. The unnatural silence. The silence that was indicative of the uninhabitable state of this realm. The hair rose on my arms at the thought. The thought that we were the only living things here for miles.

My hands twitched, the gluttonous urge to absorb all the magic in the air growing by the moment. I shook my head slightly, as if trying to shake the idea out of my mind. Paris gently touched my shoulder, without making any noise. He too was too afraid to break the heavy curtain of silence, understanding the grave meaning behind it.

I initially assumed he meant to comfort me with the hand to the shoulder, till I realized he was pointing at something. I tilted my head up in the direction he was pointing, and my heart pattered to a stop in my chest. In the place of the sun, was a red crescent sitting wide on the horizon, bloody and grim.

It was weak, barely even providing light, flickering dimly in the sleet-grey sky. I knew the lower realm had no true sun. I knew the main celestial phase was night, but the sight of it was still shocking. Crimson red and barely visible, like a drop of blood smudging the serene, near-white background. The sight of it was gruesome.

No warmth radiated from it. Paris had taken up an unnaturally pale shade in result. He was never ashen. Never this shade of ghastly near-grey. The sight forced a feeling of urgency into my system. My bones rattled with trepidation. I forgot all ideas of absorbing the magic, or at least put them off till I was done dealing with Paris.