Kuda's short stories and poems

Netaiu-Roul​

Netá'roul (n.) (From the Drakine netaiu-roul, "song of emptiness".) Requiem; lament; elegy. A funeral hymn.​

A somber, gray atmosphere matched the barren landscape perfectly, a sort of eternal dusk that would only change by dimming when the sun went down. The air was chill and stagnant, and the sky was like an enormous gray blanket, but at a glance it was impossible to tell if it was from the climate or not. Breathing in the air, however, would quickly reveal the dusty, choking quality that had been present for months, long since killing the plants and leaving predators to hunt each other. The only creatures who could escape were the Voidwalkers, but they could not bring the entire planet with them. So, without guests, they vanished into their voids.

In a way, it was roughest when everything started. The pantheon's inexplicable wrath had rained down upon Euthora in the form of its smaller moon, Shyr, fragmenting and striking the planet like so many meteors. In ancient mythology, Shyr commonly "exploded" as a display of power on the part of the moon goddess Rae, but not once had it hit the planet it orbited. The resulting impacts created craters as large as cities, destroyed the surrounding landscape, and disturbed a mountain range's worth of dirt and dust into the air, blocking the sun and thus starving the entire planet of plants. Even the air was toxic, killing almost many as the initial damage of the impacts had. The planet's population, both monsters and the mundane, was easily halved within a day. It was made worse as the oceans and rivers soon evaporated.

Thankfully the toxicity of the air soon lessened, but the old or sick or weak or young still quickly succumbed to lung complications from inhaling the dust. It became clear the planet was doomed to death, Euthora's fate out of the hands of its residents. This was confirmed when, in a rare appearance, the divine spirits Taelos and Kuu told their shocked listeners that it was a decision by the gods Cor and Rae to wipe out the current population of Euthora. No reason was given and attempts to change the gods' minds fell on deaf ears.

So all Euthora could do was wait to die of starvation.

-----​

The ruins of an ancient, long-forgotten city lay silent, save for the crunch of gravel and rotting wood under the boots of a lone traveler. A human male, perhaps in his late 20's, a haggard look on his face and a weary glaze in his eyes, gave a cough into a closed fist and looked around. The city had been abandoned centuries before, possibly longer; history books told of an uprising, a war that set the son of Rae on the path to divinity. Until recently, the surrounding area was so dangerous to humans that the traveler would likely have been hunted down and eaten long before reaching this spot. But the dragons were long gone, and the shapeshifters dead from starvation. Or perhaps cannibalism. Either way, if anything was watching him in hopes of a meal, it was just a faster way of dying than eventual starvation.

A human can survive for about three months without food. He'd kill himself before reaching that point of suffering.

His foot displaced a large, flat object he'd thought was a rock. Picking it up, he noticed that one side was broken, but time had dulled the jagged edge. Realizing what it was, he turned the scale over in his palm, inspecting the hard keratin that was all that was left after the metal must have corroded away. The dragon this scale had come from must have been very large, judging by the thickness of the remaining keratin, and a soft gasp escaped the man's lips. He had glanced away, only to see the creature's skull among the rubble of a nearby, collapsed house. Several vertebrae and a ribcage were also visible, and the man carefully ascended the rubble to inspect the skeleton.

He had never seen a living dragon before- most species had gone extinct years before. It was ironic, almost symbolic, that his first look at a dragon outside of a textbook would be a skeleton, so near to the death of the planet.

Fate and chance could be cruel sometimes.

He carefully inspected the skull, as it would give him the most information about the species. Its sharply raked crest, prominent snout, and tusk-like horns were the mark of some sort of Firedrake, and he went over the list of possibilities in his head. Plated, Barbed, Nightpyre, Golden... the list didn't go on much longer, but he eventually gave up, as bones could only tell so much to the untrained eye. He left the skull, nearly slipped on disturbed rubble, and climbed down from the pile to continue on his way.

There was something in particular he was looking for. The history books had said that after conquering Durasken in their revolt, the shapeshifters attempted to rebuild the capital city for their own use. As they preferred the wilderness, however, the project was quickly deemed a waste of time and abandoned, but not before work had already started. But if loosely organized animals could make an effort to rebuild ruins, it gave the man hope that humans could pull through the death of the planet and rebuild cities, countries, civilizations.

He almost gave up when a shoddily-reconstructed building caught his eye from a few blocks away. It was obviously some sort of town hall, as it rose higher than most houses would, and the man jogged toward it. A coughing fit overtook him a few meters away, and when he took his hand from his mouth, there was a splatter of deep red on his palm.

He might die of lung disease before starvation. Joy.

The man shook his head and walked the short distance he had left, staring up at the building. The inside had collapsed, wooden support beams having long since rotted away to allow the stone roof to fall. He was too occupied looking up to notice a large metal object at his feet, so he tripped on it, spraining his left ankle and hitting his head on the ground. He groaned, then struggled into a sitting position- judging from how he felt like vomiting, he obviously had a concussion- and glared at the offening object before wrenching it from the scattered rubble near the building. With a chilled thought, he warily glanced up before inspecting the metal object.

It was a pair of dragons, side by side and roaring at some unseen threat. Both had their outer front paws lifted, their entwined tails arching over flared wings and tipped with razor-like blades. The man's breath caught in his throat as he recognized the statue- or, rather, the dragons depicted. History and mythology books, once again. The metal was too tarnished and blackened to identify, but the man knew one dragon was an alloy of gold, its brother silver. The dragon companions of the now-god that had led the shapeshifters' revolt.

The man held the statue to his chest, closing his eyes. He began speaking, starting off with a whispered prayer for life to continue on Euthora, for the dust to clear, for plants to grow, for death to be replaced by life. Soon, however, he found himself shouting at the metal dragons, cursing them, cursing their master, cursing the divine spirits. Cursing Cor and Rae for condemning and abandoning their planet. The man yelled vulgarities at the metal beasts until his throat was raw and he was coughing up blood again. For a moment, all was quiet again as the man struggled to catch his breath. The twin dragons remained unchanged, still roaring at something only they could see, not caring about the affairs of a dying man. Seized once again by his fury, the man glared at the statue and threw it over a rubble pile that was apparently once a butcher shop.

He froze as something on the other side of the pile yelped.

He stayed frozen as the source of the sound emerged, glaring at him with pale golden eyes. It was a wolf, its coat matted but pure white, its eyes glazed with exhaustion and hunger. Its left ear appeared to have been torn to shreds, probably in a fight with another predator that was just as starved. The animal was emaciated, its ribs showing even through its thick fur. Its tongue hung out, but even in the dim light, it looked bone-dry. Foam had formed at the corners of its open muzzle out of dehydration. A strangled, gurgling noise came from its throat, and it took the man a moment to realize it was supposed to be a snarl. The wolf began to take a step forward, its remaining ear flat against its head, before the predator shuddered and collapsed. It lay there, golden eyes half-closed but glaring at him.

The man tried to stand, but his injured ankle would not allow him. The best he could do was situate himself against the wall of the building, which at least was more comfortable than next to a starved wolf. Deciding to risk the animal attacking and killing him, the man decided to sleep the exhaustion and pain away.


He awoke to a dull ache in his right arm, glancing to the side to see the wolf lying just within reach, gnawing weakly at it. The animal wasn't even going to kill him first. It was going to eat him alive. Some part of his brain told him that he should run or fight the animal off, but he just couldn't work up the energy for even fear. He wouldn't be fighting anything off in his condition anyway. He realized for the first time that he was just as dehydrated as the wolf.

Difference was, he could still kill something.

It took him a moment to fish out his only weapon with his left arm, a small hunting knife. The blade felt odd in his hand, as it was usually held in his right, but it would get the job done. His grip tightened. He raised his hand.

And he slit his own throat.

The knife clattered to the ground, and the wolf growled weakly at the sudden noise.

As his vision faded and he bled out, the man thought he saw a black-haired man with a dragon's wings watching him from several meters away. The figure looked at the man with something like sorrow or pity in his emerald eyes, and then the world was gone.

 

[Untitled] Euthoran Creation Myth

Feel free to be critical about this. I know some lines are awkward and the meter is off in several places but I wrote this in about an hour.

Of note is that in-universe, this was written by a dragon, so that explains some of the descriptions and wording.

Edit 10/15/2016
A slightly revised version can, for now, be found here.
[hr]

Around a star in blackest space
Spins a stone, a barren place
Twin moons light the twilight sky
The daylight sun is blazing high

Of two guardians, each work apart
To form the world, they do their part
Oceans spread and flowers spring
Beasts roam among everything

Birds sing tunes to greet the morn
The sun rises, new life is born
But howling wolves warn of the moon
All hope the day returns soon

Dissonance soon takes its hold
A clash between the warmth and cold
An angry god, defending light
Wars with the one who holds the night

Bursts of light flare in the sky
Cowering, no bird dares fly
Divine wrath tears up the ground
A rumble of thunder, the only sound

Soon they stop, soon they pull back
Their stone could crumble at one more crack
Horror quells their heated anger
At putting their world in danger

A compromise forms a solution
As each hopes for absolution
From each god, two spirits are born
Called forth to settle the feud forlorn

But a chance these spirits see
As they know how their world could be
If they work together of free will
No feud to settle if none wish ill

"Rebuild the world to make it new
If you help me, I will help you
Our creators' feud is not our own
The world needs our unity shown"

And so their work, the spirits do
Creating life to start anew
Each taking pride in their creation
To make it worth a god's frustration

The fire spirit's blazing bird
Could never die, it was assured
A flying wolf, from she of wind
Great wisdom to now ascend

To walk the earth, a beast called "man"
Raises sprawling cities, because he can
And water's child, a shifting beast
A fluid change to hunt its feast

It cannot work, they realize
If each makes one, then teamwork dies
They see they cannot work alone
And ignore their goal of unity shown

As each gives strength, a creature forms
With blade-edged teeth and ivory horns
Coated with the strongest scale
From deadly claws to powerful tail

Wind spirit gives her gift of flight
Earth gives his strength and vicelike bite
Water adapts- her gift, the same
And fire's pride: his gift of flame

The creature forms, though not yet done
The spirits' efforts- they worked as one
A divine gift from warring gods
Sense and valor to surpass all odds

Loosed on the planet, this newborn beast
Of lesser beings makes its feast
Unified creation with no visible flaw
To hold the world in its claw

Falling back, energy to conserve
The warring gods wait and observe
All know the path that they have set
But years pass to interfere yet

Their perfect beast must overcome
Challenges to they called "dragon"
The gods wait for the path to go wrong
And so they sing Euthora's song.​

 

RE: Euthoran short stories and poems

Merged these two threads because I'm working on more An Things involving pre-ER Euthora.