Full Plot

[Phoenix]

our past in the eyes of cryos

It is summer. I am growing old and weary, yet this is a tale that must be passed on. If it's not... I do not know what will happen to these lands. The ones many call Dia Noche -- Sun and Night. They are called so for our separations. How I wish that we could all just live in peace... but I shall never see that in my lifetime. Not in this body.

I came here as a curious yearling. I had been recently forced from my herd, but it hadn't caused problems for me. It meant I was free to go where I wanted, do what I wished, and I very much enjoyed that. I stepped into this land unaware as to how it would change my life. As soon as my foot was on the grass on the other side of some invisible line, my world started to spin. Yet, how I knew it was spinning I wasn't sure. The only thing I saw was black.

Only moments later my eyes were mine again, no longer seeing the darkness of sleep. I felt different, but I wouldn't know how different until I went back for mares from my old herd, particularly the filly that I had fallen in love with. I fought a tremendous battle with my father, but he dealt a fatal blow.

And yet I did not die.

In my anger at the pain it gave me, suddenly fire came out of nowhere and was hurled at him. He was dead in the instant, burned in the fires of rage. All the others came with me afterward, but I was unaware of my victory. All I could think of was how I had not died. It happened to the others too, once they came back with me to where I called home, the Kingdom of Dia.

I strove to learn the secrets of this land, and learn I did. This land, Dia Noche, once you enter you cannot die. Not easily, anyway. Old age creeps ever nearer to steal your life, but you life is also lengthened. I have seen those who want to die, die, and those who do not, live on in agony at fatal wounds. It is not glorious and beautiful as you would think. It is gruesome and sadistic, but it was, and still is, our life.

My brother, who had left just before I was born, had found the other side of this paradise, coincidentally. I did not know this, not at first. We did meet, once, on the border of my kingdom, and his, the Kingdom of Noche. Little did I know that Thorn hadn't been blessed with powers as I had, and he hated it. In fact, only a small selected few of my herd had gotten them as well, but in different forms.

He had a herd as well, as all stallions in charge of their own lands should. They had powers, or at least a few did. I met up with one of them on my wanderings, the ones in which I found the temples where the imperials, the gods of the powers and the sides of darkness and light, help and hinder us. One mare in particular peeked my interest.

She was a beautiful bay, her coat had a wonderful shine. Not yet having partner with which to lead my herd, I, naturally, was courteous, trying to get her to come with me. I knew she was different, but I could only imagine how. She came at me with her teeth bared. I hadn't wanted a fight, so, like a coward, I ran.

That was the worst thing I could have done. It turns out that she was Thorn's lead. She followed me. But as Thorn and his army, as I will call them, came close to where I sheltered with my herd, he stopped, unable to go farther thanks to a mysterious force. We have used this to our advantage many times since that day.

Later we warred, but turned up equal. It happened repeated times, so many I have lost count. Now we both lay here on our deathbed, this time without fights, without harsh words. We are equals. We are one soul now. I wish to elaborate more, but I feel I am slipping away. I fear for the future, what it will bring, but know there is nothing left me nor Thorn can do to turn the tides. We have started a permanent war, and we cannot stop it now that it's started.

***

Centuries later I look down from my sky pedestal at the split lands, three in Dia, three in Noche, and likely to split further. The war continues, but we are no longer as alone up here as we were at first, when we began our reign from the imperials before us. An imperial from each power was eventually chosen, but this group was much more attached to the land than the imperials before. Even I and Thorn visit, often, and it shows. We can materialize to a mortal body, and we can love, be loved, have foals. We are almost still alive, but we do not age, we do not hunger or thirst, and we don't get injured. We know better than to live with a herd. Stay too long in a mortal form and eventually you are just gone, or so Gryphyn, the imperial I have replaced, told me all those generations ago.

and we fear for our future

It has been a great many years since these lands were first discovered. Lands that, once entered, left the equine unable to die by anything but old age or the will to do so. Land that could bestow great power, in the form of earth, air, water, fire, ice, or psychic. But, although the long-reigning war between light and dark continues, something far worse is coming, coming out of the darkness.

Only those who have touched the other side, the after life, can feel it, some more than others. Something is stirring, something that will forever change the lives of the herds of Dia Noche. Disasters are beginning to occur throughout the lands. Some blame it on being a bad year, others believe it is, indeed, something greater. But none can deny that something is coming, something terrifying and terrible. With devastation on the way, will the herds be able to put aside their differences and work together, in order to save not only their lives, but their souls? Only you can decide.