<span style="color: #00BF80">Kaersah screamed out his rage and anger as the dagger buried it’s blackened blade straight into Aelaez’s chest. The dagger wasn’t typical metal Kaersah realized a moment too late as Aelaez crumpled to the ground in a heap. A boneless mass. Kaersah screamed again as he saw the look on Aelaez’s blood stained face. Aelaez had a kind of unearthly beauty to him that shone radiantly in his granite white skin. The soft glowing silver blood pooling from his chest staining his clothing. Kaersah couldn’t seem too look away until he saw the demon advance towards Aelaez’s still form. Anger mixed with desperation Kaersah ran forwards drawing his blade clear of the body he had skewered moments before. He screamed and in a move as old as earth he attacked. The flash of the blue steel sliced through the air and caught the demon across the shoulder. Not a fatal wound. The demon turned to face him.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Beidh mé ag ithe do anam, ansin chríochnú an Caomhnóir”</span> the demon hissed, <span style="font-style: italic">I will eat your soul, then finish the Guardian</span>. Kaersah laughed and drove the blade straight into the creatures heart. With a wry laugh Kaersah spoke.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Beidh Deamhan leathcheann tú riamh a fhoghlaim. Ná dramhaíola do fiosrachadh teoranta ar chaint, beidh tú bás gach uair,”</span> Kaersah said in his deep angry voice as he pulled out the blade and watched the Demon turn to dust before his eyes. <span style="font-style: italic">Demon idiot you will never lear. Do not waste your limited intelligence on speech, you will die every time.</span> He sheathed the sword and looked over at Aelaez noticing the once white skin was now turning black with the faintest outline of silver where the veins in his body flowed just beneath his skin. The large wings that curled around his thin body were black as midnight where once they had been white as alabaster stone. Kaersah ran to him with a cry of, “Aelaez! Aon!” Kaersah fell to his knees before Aeleaz and gently lay his hand against the other’s cheek. <span style="font-weight: bold">”Bás, bac a chur ar do lámh ar an lá seo,”</span> Kaersah whispered trough the tears that now fell down his blood stained cheeks. The celtic man wept openly. <span style="font-style: italic">Death, stay your hand on this day.</span> <br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Tá mé... Réidh... Maith dom... Kaersah,”</span> Aelaez’s voice was weak and his words barely above that of a whisper as his hand weakly took hold of Kaersah’s. <span style="font-style: italic">I... Ready... Forgive me... Kaersah.</span> Kaersah shook his head and grabbed Aelaez into his arms rising slowly with the body of his friend cradled in his broad arms. <br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Nae,”</span> Kaersah whispered and headed back towards the small camp they shared with the sorceress Ceitidh. Kaersah carried Aelaez the short distance to find the circle Aelaez had laid down as dusk set over the wide open grassy field of the island on which the warrior, the sorceress and the dragon-son Guardian of the Isle of Mist had chosen to make their stay. Kaersah passed the circle with a faint feeling of power tingling along his skin and shivered. <br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Ceitidh, tá do chabhair ag teastáil!”</span> Kaersah shouted and paused beside the fire. Ceitidh with an expression of anger and frustration exited the tent. Her lean body clad in a fine green gown with a simple belt wrapped around her waist gathering the otherwise straight cut gown around her waist augmenting the shape of her hips. Ceitidh’s eyes were ablaze with azure fire and her mouth was open to curse him out or scold him. However one single look down at Aelaez’s still form in Kaersah’s arms his breathing coming in gurgled gasps was enough to move her into action. She rushed forwards to lightly brush her fingers over his cheek. Feeling the pulse of ice cold coming off him.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Bandia a bheith trócaireach. Tá sé ag dul trasna os a chionn,”</span> she whispered. Her voice holding an edge of both fear and reverence. <span style="font-style: italic">Goddess be merciful. He is crossing over.</span> Kaersah felt the ice cold touch of fear. Even as Aelaez could feel their emotions he could feel his own. That edge of pain and terror. As his life was dwindling to a fine white point tunnel Aelaez could feel the island beginning to fly apart. The magic of his own blood beginning to spin apart. He could hear the cry of pain from his fellow half-dragons and full-dragons as they began to join him in death. He struggled to fight the poison winning inside his blood as his eyes found Ceitidh’s and the silver of Aelaez’s gaze swirling around like living pools of melted metal meeting the azure fire that was Ceitidh’s gaze. <br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Abair leis...”</span> Aelaez managed to whisper, but he knew it was enough as Ceitidh turned to Kaersah once more. <span style="font-style: italic">Tell him...</span><br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Is féidir liom a shábháil dó, ach beidh ort a bás. Gá dom d’anam d’fhonn a athrú ar an damáiste. Ní Aelaez mar atá tú nó Is. Tá sé ina bhail áit eile. Am eile. Ní féidir liom a leigheas air is a thiocfadh liom tú. Caithfidh mé a dhéanann tú an dá cheann. Is é seo an t-aon bhealach. Is féidir leis an cogadh idir do anamacha i comhlacht amháin a ghlacadh go maith tú an dá thar an bratgnùise. Ní féidir liom a ráthú,”</span> Ceitidh said as she pulled back the cloth over the entrance so Kaersah could enter with Aelaez. <span style="font-style: italic">I can save him, but you will have to die. I need your soul in order to reverse the damage. Aelaez is not as you or I. He is a being of another place. Another time. I cannot heal him as I could you. I must make you both one. This is the only way. The war between your souls in one body may well take you both beyond the veil. This I cannot guarantee.</span><br/><br/>Kaersah set Aeleaz down on the piled furs over in the corner that made up the bed. He knelt beside Aelaez and took his hand gently into both of his own. His voice thick with tears he whispered, <span style="font-weight: bold">”An bhfuil an méid ní mór duit a shábháil dó.”</span> <span style="font-style: italic">Do what you must to save him.</span> <br/><br/>Ceitidh lightly laid her hand over his shoulder and squeezed. She turned away and walked over to the counter taking up a single candle and leaving the dimly lit tent to go to the main fire where she lit the candle in it’s ambers and returned with the light causing the dim tent to be brightly lit by the harsh firelight. She walked over to Aeleaz and set the candle down next to his head. Raising her hands towards the sky she began a chant that laced praise to the Goddess and a song of revival into words. <br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">An tost an tráthnóna <span style="font-style: italic"> The silence of evening </span><br/>Tá mé ag glactha ag sé fuar <span style="font-style: italic"> I’m embraced by it’s cold </span><br/>Ar an cosán dòrtadh-fala mé ag siúl <span style="font-style: italic"> On the blooded path I walk </span><br/>Isteach síorraidheachd dorcha <span style="font-style: italic"> Into darkest eternity </span><br/>Ó am, áit nó am a tháinig mé <span style="font-style: italic"> From no time, place or time I came </span><br/>Ar fud an cairde de mo chuid brionglóidí <span style="font-style: italic"> Across the friends of my dreams </span><br/>Tríd an Coille bruadair mé le shiúil <span style="font-style: italic"> Through the dreaming glade I’ve walked </span><br/>Áit éigin i bhforaoisí codlata <span style="font-style: italic"> Somewhere in forests of sleep </span><br/>An tost an tráthnóna <span style="font-style: italic"> The silence of evening </span><br/>Tá mé na dhùisg fós aisling agam <span style="font-style: italic"> I’m awake still I dream</span><br/><br/>Tá mé shiúil síos ar bhruacha ama <span style="font-style: italic"> I’ve walked down the shores of time </span><br/>I na scáthanna de peacadh <span style="font-style: italic"> In the shadows of sin </span><br/>I am na ndeor a thagann sé <span style="font-style: italic"> In a time of tears it comes </span><br/>Sruthán réimsí de mo bhrionglóidí <span style="font-style: italic"> To burn the fields of my dreams </span><br/>Mé le feiceáil comharthaí ag bhruacha ama <span style="font-style: italic"> I’ve seen the signs by the shores of time </span><br/>Is iad an ceann deireanach de camhanaich le teacht <span style="font-style: italic"> The last of dawns are to come </span><br/>Mé le feiceáil comharthaí ag na bhruacha ama, damnation dó <span style="font-style: italic"> I’ve seen the signs by the shores of time, burning damnation </span><br/>Anois siúl liom féin tríd na geataí peacadh, gan aithrí <span style="font-style: italic"> Now I walk alone through the gates of sin, without repentance </span><br/><br/>An tost an tráthnóna <span style="font-style: italic"> The silence of evening </span><br/>Fós ag fanacht mé ar an breacadh an lae <span style="font-style: italic"> Still I wait for the dawn </span><br/>Ar mo rian na ndeor mé ag siúl <span style="font-style: italic"> On my trail of tears I walk </span><br/>I am na ndeor a thagann sé <span style="font-style: italic"> In a time of tears it comes </span><br/>Sruthán réimsí de mo bhrionglóidí <span style="font-style: italic"> To burn the fields of my dreams </span><br/>Mé le feiceáil comharthaí ag bhruacha ama <span style="font-style: italic"> I’ve seen the signs by the shores of time </span><br/>Is é an ceann deireanach de deiraenach le teacht. <span style="font-style: italic">The last of dawns is to come. </span></div><br/><br/>As the song ended Ceitidh watched with tear streaming down her eyes as Kaersah slumped over onto Aelaez and went still. Ceitidh knew that Kaersah was dead, but as Aelaez’s eyes opened the swirling silver dulled to black with flakes of swirling silver and Ceitidh knew the impossible had happened. Her husband lived within the body of the dragon-son. She gasped and fell to the floor before him as Aelaez rose and without speaking a word dropped the dagger that had begun this event and led him to this path and walked out of the tent to Ceitidh’s cries echoing in his ears. </span><br/><br/>Aelaez lay on his back the tears this memory wrought of a time millions of years in the past flooding his thoughts. Alive with pain he sat up, but the landscape wasn’t the great castle in which he’d fallen to sleep. This landscape wasn’t his world, his home. There was something odd about this place. The texture of the air. The taste of the light as it kissed his skin wasn’t right. Aelaez gazed down at himself. His black as midnight skin shone with the faint silver light of barely visible veins beneath the hard skin. He knew his long silver hair would be shimmering like molten silver in the light that seemed to pool around him. The plain white robes he wore reminded him of the robes he had worn when he was a druid back in the days before Kaersah became a constant companion in his skull.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">”Where the hell are we Aez?”</span>The voice of the celt sounded in his mind and he sighed in relief as Kaersah’s harsh baritone resonated in the depths of his aching skull. He rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows where the faintest trace of an ancient celtic tattoo still resided. Faded by age and time. Aeleaz rose and felt suddenly dizzy and sick. The overwhelming sensation reminding him of his death as the dagger had bitten into his flesh. A cry escaped his lips as a thin trail of silver blood flowed down his lips from his nose. He could taste it’s thickly metallic tang in his mouth. Coating his tongue. Balance seemed gone as he pressed his hand over the center of his chest where the dagger had left it’s mark on his flesh. His eyes filling with tears. The burning of the scar was almost enough to drive him to his knees as he stood facing the entirely odd environment. Half wilderness of climbing black trees and half modern with the dark metal chair on which he’d sat moments before. It’s cruel metal edges bitting into the trees causing sap to drip along the metal as blood lit by the bright white light causing the amber liquid to glitter and almost glow like blood.<br/><br/>The floor on which he stood was a mix of cracked concrete, shrubs and thickets growing up through the cracks and coating the floor with small barbs that would bite viciously into his bare feet. His hand still resting against his chest his eyes wide he looked around at the walls covered in crawling ivy, black and dripping with thick slimy ichor. Aeleaz drew back as the vileness of the place began to sink into him. Making him feel sicker. His head pounded with white hot agony as his flesh took on the faintest glow of silver. A sign that his magic was rising to block out the evil that threatened to corrupt his very soul.<br/><br/>He drew back and smacked into the wall feeling the needles bite into his flesh. The small thorns of the rising ivy, the thick ichor seeping across his clothing causing the skin beneath to burn like lava was coating his flesh. He threw himself away and stumbled over the crack in the floor and fell. His eyes closing as pain and horror mixed within him. Except the floor never came. He felt nothing. Nothing at all. Only empty night. Aelaez didn’t dare draw open his eyes once more for fear of what would be around him if he did. For fear that whatever vileness waited to draw against his magic would finally cause his aching mind to crack. His stomach threatened insurrection at the lack of orientation and the press of vileness against his body and mind coating him as though a thick curtain of fog had fallen over him.<br/><br/>The words echoed all around him in the void as the cold metallic touch of steel dug painfully into his hands and knees. He was kneeling on the floor.<span style="font-weight: bold">”Commence operation. Commence operation. Commence operation...”</span>The voice sounded to Aelaez as Kaersah’s voice. That deep celtic accented baritone that had often been his only companion in the long and endless days of solitude that the ageless being had survived. Aelaez felt only dizziness as he rose to his feet his eyes flying open to reveal a large empty room with a single door in it’s wall. Total darkness had fallen, but that wasn’t a problem for Aelaez. His eyes could see as well in darkness as in light. He walked towards the door and hesitated to touch it as the voice continued to fill the air without source. Repeating itself over and over. He reached for the door and the voice changed.<span style="font-weight: bold">”Commence input,”</span>he froze and looked around expecting an attack as vileness pressed against him all the harder. His head spinning, pounding with rising agony, his vision blurred as the voice continued and his vision dimmed to the point he feared he’d pass out from it.<span style="font-weight: bold">”Subject file: K-E-P-E-R. Scenario: N-I-G-H-T-M-A-R-E. Corrupt sanity. Remove heart. Break spirit.”</span><br/><br/>Aeleaz stumbled into the door, but it didn’t catch him. It flew open and he fell through into the next room, this time landing hard on the metal ground. He curled up around himself as the harsh light bit deep into his eyes sending lances of agony into his skull. He screamed from the pain as something bit deep into his forehead. He raised a trembling hand to press it to the spot right between his eyes and felt the slick flow of blood under his digits. He didn’t move his hand. He didn’t want to see his blood coating his fingers as he swallowed back the bile that rose up.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”Master! Wake master,”</span>the voice of a woman who sounded no older then twenty years of age stood over him. Aeleaz blinked his eyes open, both dizziness and pain slipped away to a dull headache. He stared up into the face of the woman. Her large hazel eyes framed by thick black makeup. Her face a pale oval with long black hair tied up into two pony tails and died a series of blue, purple and pink. Her entirely too gothic look, had always unsettled Aeleaz. Which wasn’t a surprised as this was Aitash’s mortal form. Aitash was a demon, she was Aeleaz’s demon companion. As odd as it was for the Guardian to have a demon protector, Aeleaz did. He had found Aitash when she was but four days old, being devoured by her kin because she was ‘defective’ he had saved her and been unable to kill her. He had taken her in and she now served him.<br/><br/>He regarded the normal looking human form of the lesser demon woman, who might appear as a twenty-some-odd years old, but in reality was over twelve-thousand-centuries old. Aeleaz didn’t want to think of hold old that made him. Aeleaz still looked as though he were only twenty-six years of age. He had never aged a day beyond that. He never would. He rose slowly sitting on the fur covered pallet he’d been sleeping on. It had all been a dream. He stood.<span style="color: #00Bf80">”Thank you Aitash,”</span>he replied as he began to dress in the regular clothing he wore. Tight leather pants, a loose blood-red t-shirt with a long black leather duster to finish off the ‘regular’ cloths he wore. His wings hidden beneath the loose shirt as they lay flat against his back. He could feel them as he moved pressing the material of the shirt tight across his chest. He remembered the dream and how he had felt the pain slicing his head and chest. The blood. He walked to the mirror the cold stone floor feeling good against his bare feet. He regarded his face in the glass and saw only the faint tattoo glowing bright blue on his forehead. How odd. It had only done this when he had been within the grips of prophecy.<br/><br/>Shaking his head he turned to Aitash.<span style="color: #00BF80">”How is our prisoner this morning?”</span>He inquired in his soft lilting heavily accented voice.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">”He’s been screaming a lot master,”</span>Aitash said her voice all sing-songy,<span style="font-weight: bold">”Can I eat him so he stops screaming?”</span>She asked with open expectation and desire turning her features into a harsh mask close to her demonic form.<br/><br/><span style="color: #00BF80">”Not yet little one, if he refuses to answer our questions then you may have an arm as incentive,”</span>Aeleaz replied and Aitash pouted. He left her in his room. She would tidy up and be within call as she always was. He walked down the long hallway, down the spiral stairs and to the large black door. He pushed it open with barely an effort and entered the room to find the skeleton atop the man. He sighed.<span style="color: #00BF80">”That’s quite enough, leave us. There are words to be had,”</span>he said his voice cold and commanding.<br/><br/>Aeleaz entered the room the light of the hallway lighting him from behind making his odd appearance blatantly obvious to the stranger upon the dungeon floor. He didn’t both with a glamour as he regarded the man with dispassionate uncaring eyes. His face a blank of emotionless cold. His voice just as uncaring, just as cold and distant.<span style="color: #00BF80">”Why did you come here stranger?”</span>He asked wondering if the man upon the floor would answer him or if he would need to begin by removing parts of his body to gain his answers. No one had found the castle home of Alaismaira since Kaersah had stumbled upon the shores of the Isle of Mist so many millions of centuries in the past he could barely keep track of the time that had passed since that day, yet those were his clearest and strongest memories.