The End
Ano Owari
That smell… The smell of death, flame, and destruction permeated the air. It was a smell that stung Rae's nose and brought tears to her eyes. As she ventured through the portal… Home, she realized something was wrong. Very wrong. She turned to her dog, Teflic.
"Go to my hut… It's through the forest, over there." She said, gesturing towards the forest.
Apprehensively, the dog trotted forward, away from the thicket.
Slowly, Rae went through the small thicket that surrounded the portal. And then the ultimate horror met her eyes.
The village was no more.
Rae ran to the center of the ashes. The huts, everything was burnt to the ground. She could smell the presence of smoke in the night air. Something sent a chill down her spine. She looked around, and screamed.
"What the hell happened?!" she cried to the night sky.
Her voice echoed through the silent, empty night. Rae was swimming with confusion, and her fingers slowly balled up into fists.
"Loa…" she whispered darkly, as she lowered her head. She felt like killing her. She felt like destroying her. She had taken everything. This was the end.
Rae looked around, her green eyes aflame with rage, hate, and pain. But something restrained her. That ever-present voice. Her mother?
Rise above it…
Her mother whispered. Rae nodded, unclenching the tight fists. Although she had barely left the love of Rough Cove, her heart was now icy. She would find Loa, and help her Amazon family. They were all she had known for a long time. She would be damned if she left them alone.
As Rae walked through the charred village, her heart pounding. She knew that the Queen would tell the Amazons to go to the Eastern caves, the assigned emergency place. Rae inclined her head to look up the dark mountain path. Loa must be present… Somewhere. A chill was in the night air, and Rae turned her face to the full moon for a moment. Was that smoke marring it's perfect face? Smoke in the shape of…
A black dragon?
Rae shook her head, clearing her mind of the thought. That was bizarre. She looked again, and realized it was nothing. Nothing was on the moons surface. It was perfect, white and round. Pure. Unlike certain other things. That thought jarred Rae back into reality. She stared bleakly back up at the path leading to the caves, and then swallowed. She held no fear of Loa anymore. She started up the path.
********
Loa sat on the rocky outcropping still. The night was quiet, and the Amazons and the cave were equally so. She giggled again. She was here. Rae had returned. Loa could feel her. Loa's senses felt like they were working overtime, they could pick up the slightest nuances, and the powers she had used to destroy the pitiful Amazon village still bubbled in her soul, and threatened to return. Somehow, Loa suppressed it. She was saving it. Rae was walking up the path now. Loa could almost see the Amazon advancing up the rocky terrain. Closer, closer, closer. Closer to death.
Loa could feel death in the air tonight as well. The reaper was present tonight, eagerly awaiting someone's life. Her mind was cloudy though, and as much as she knew... She could not figure out which life would end. She smiled a cold smile as she replayed her deeds in her thoughts. The heat and the destruction. The pure power of it all. The crackling and the screams, the echo of the fire in her head, she drank it all in, and savored it. She would use that fuel to destroy Rae, and end the Amazon nation present on the island.
They were all fools. In the end, that was all they had ever been. It was funny how people could fool themselves into thinking that they were righteous. How they could swear that their way was THE way. Loa would show them that their arrogance would lead to their downfall. Loa's head raced with a million thoughts at once, as she closed her eyes. Her mind was a jumble of words and images, sound and thought converged into a puddle of nothing. Insanity. She liked this. She liked having no control. Why have control when you're destined for something much much greater. In her heart she could really care less. She cursed all the pitiful fools that dwelled on the face of the planet, and all of the people she had known, since they would die first. Most of all, she pitied her poor, simple, foolish mother, who had given up on her. Totally and completely abandoned her, and left her for the demons of the world, that fed on the carrion of the people. Loa was a piece of scum that had been collected by Shang, and through Shang, Loa had learned hate, and pain, and bitterness. That was the black dragon's spirit… All the negative energy of the world focused on her. Loa shook her head at the thoughts. Her mother was at fault for all the death…
She had brought Loa into this world.
The only part of Loa that still registered anything thought of her mother. She was too simple to realize the evil she had brought into the world.
Loa was indeed evil. The epitome of it.
Loa giggled horribly, and then glanced to her left, at the path. She could feel Rae approaching. She was here. It was time to finally end this.
She stood, and sighed. Drawing her daggers slowly, she let the bloodstained, dull edges glimmer in the darkness. It was time for Rae to die, forever this time.
________________________________________________