✥248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡowPLcD5vrG
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrMDVaRQ5L5
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw3oha5jp0P
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVWrUwoErCn
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW242QyJJOx
"Ancient legends have told the story of the248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5sMU8fSqlZ
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvdV6x4pOZ
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."248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSnNNBaUJSp
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ18Qx6JpdM4
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkl8BUckcd1
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHkxvHDPqz
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw105fvL2ze
EXCERPT PASSAGE FROM248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTtfYmWbbuw
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtzvluqMzIm
THE GODLING ARCHIVES248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2FcDYKaa87
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5vwn6Yu0vK
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1BhTrriUgW
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGRIN8PYnW5
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBWlxmBkHuU
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL58MQL54YU
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuF4xOVuEE6
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSgA5SqX4Fm
✥
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLWV3fjnhDT
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO0hU6pgunW
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.248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaI13YR7AYz
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjYCbJobNyq
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh0UVXhRkqF
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.248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDh1NEK5WUT
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.248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡscAgAaDJrb
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcgSXVqj3YG
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbXfMjc0bKf
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.248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrxfPgHcf7p
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSaItbOzPQk
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgr50oU8QsB
Taken up the torch to end the world.248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1jgjmvnukr
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSDCVpCt3VW
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUeTBIFf8DU
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgL7DVkFfUC
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdPufhlHSiG
✥248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqlFQOAcMAy
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgFr1a3n2te
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlDR7DKzDJ4
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4zAP8uB6J
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbqSRYUzNTi
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdtmRCiQf1K
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoPZnKgQJuK
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJFhkE5nkvL
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD0zvERbayQ
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWFrsqZsUNz
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡueUZIJcuJJ
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2FQdHdACVz
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0QmHzKgn0c
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuVmGRC2XAF
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOm3qfjcxeZ
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnvnmqIIX4b
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEeXMcF6LPN
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvaShORxdZt
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡarc3K5I4GG
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Xpoj7zwxp
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFUo7mMgDVH
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE8gLO7pqC3
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡumRzPyP4zL
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYGCq4Mx3fw
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCQ5Iw752s7
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3IdwiARcF4
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdLtQoV30dD
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1GGCXNnqGV
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSDGcahc1W9
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQqwFL2iKbe
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB128IDMdJS
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡusF7MEn86R
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiCk6tS6Kv4
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoB5zE6igRy
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXAXGarbOth
248Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNoBLMMrgDf
