- Family was a thing he cared little for. It was in large part why he left the nest early on, claiming his independence and initiating the search for worth within this frivolous world. Irithyll… for all its beauty and wonder it left Sebek feeling devoid of challenge. Numb, even. There were, to be sure, challenging things within the realm, mostly made out of moments and discrepancies with others but even then, they were always handled diplomatically and resolved without much of a struggle… Which, Sebek found, was something he didn’t quite favor. It seemed as if no fight was ever so great as to shake his foundation. To really put his mind to the test. And as his mind continued to grow, evolving into the very thing that would make him who he was for the rest of his days… it required testing. Or perhaps… less of it requiring it and more of Sebek desiring for it.
But all that internal complaining began to wane on his resolve and, again, in Sebek’s journey to self-discovery, he unearthed a disdain for yet another font of interaction: The whine. So, while he remained in Irithyll he lived his life as best he could with all that had been given. He lived alone, aggressively against company but always threatened by little. It wasn’t until he met with outsiders for the first time that he began to feel something beyond the mundane, the ridiculous, the numbness.
At first it was difficult for him to get a handle on conversation. He was too forceful at times, and at others too passive. He became too irate when the information did not serve his expectations and would more often than not be left emptyhanded. Failure was a part of the process and he had to accept that; no matter how much it dented his ego. Eventually, the young peryton experienced a breakthrough when a foreign beast seemed receptive to his casual, albeit forthright, advances. The creature regaled its experiences in a world far beyond Sebek’s own. They recounted strife unimaginable, loss of every kind, love as deep as the Black Sea. With every new story, a deeper breath filled Sebek’s chest. His heart leapt in ways it never had before. For the first time in his short life, he could feel something, and it was glorious.
But the Veil the stranger spoke of had been sealed shut for… well… they couldn’t say. Time was nearly irrelevant here and the effects Irithyll had on outsiders became clearer the longer Sebek engaged with them. They could not tell him when it would reopen. They, very likely, did not want to know that answer themselves, all of them so drunk off magic and whimsy. But Sebek was a native with inherent connections to the very weave these strangers fed off of. He could find the answers… he would just have to ask the right questions of the right individuals.
Another wall. Another failure. Every Ethereal he came across was just as dumbfounded as he. Every peryton as unsure. Every jackalope as curious. The wisps were flighty and unhelpful as well, leading Sebek astray. Many of them were consumed by the peryton in his frustrations, to which word must have spread in whatever wisp language there is, for fewer and fewer seemed to drift along his path after that. In the end, Sebek would learn another lesson and gained another tool set: Patience.
The Veil, a gleaming portal of light, resurfaced. Guarded by perytons within the thorny circle, it glowed and glistened and welcomed as much as it warned. Beyond the gate was a world he had heard plenty of but had never known. Beyond the gate, he knew death could be waiting. But Sebek went anyway, hoping to confront the maker. Hoping to find the struggles mentioned by those who claimed to have made peace with it. Sebek knew… if they had truly made peace, they would have embraced their realm and succumb to the fates; whatever they might have been.
No. The outsiders who had escaped this new land had done so not as adventurers but as refugees. And whatever it was they ran from… Sebek wished to run towards.
Through the Veil he walked, a bridge which felt seconds and an eternity long. Admittedly, his heart was aflutter with both thrill and nerves as everything was coming to a head. What he would be leaving behind was a half-life, lived in the vision of Gods who had long since left the plane themselves… or so Sebek had come to assume. Even they grew board of the perfection. As he felt the warping pull at his existence, for a moment he thought he might dissolve into nothingness. Never making it across. Never knowing the answers to his questions. It frightened him, an expression he would come to know very little of in his future before confidence took its place.
Sebek had a purpose in this new world. He couldn’t tell what it was yet, but he felt certain it wasn’t to be decimated in the process of planes walking.
Dark wings were held loosely at his side, ready to beat against the wind if called for it or to stretch out in a display of grandeur; should that need arise. He had built an entire world in his head based off the tales he had been told, but he had no idea what he could truly expect. Would it be greater than his dreams? Would it be scarier? He hoped for both.
The intensity of motion, despite Sebek’s calm approach, ended abruptly as an empty forest of dead trees opened before him. A pallid sky barren of clouds stretched across the perceptible horizon and a dryness to the air made him cough. It was bleak, more a wasteland than a forest really, appearing to exist in a perpetual state of death and decay. It was so stark a difference from the world he had just stepped out of that it made the young peryton laugh. What a joke.
But… it wasn’t all that far from what he had envisioned. Less hellfire and holes that fell straight to center of the planet but, damnable nonetheless. It felt heavy. It felt empty of magic, save what pooled out from the Veil itself and what lingering notes had been left behind from flitting Irithyll beasts. It felt so far from what *home* had been. As the moments passed, Sebek’s mind began to race and that feeling, the one had he felt the very moment a new reality was possible for him, swelled to the surface.
What, oh what, to do now?
(( 1088 ))
