Meanworld...
(Here's a silly, edgelordy little project I thought of as a sendoff for Endwalker. It probably sucks. But it's not like you've got anything better to do while we wait on Dawntrail, so give it a read, hey?)
Even now, I remember standing there. Locked in a moment where the sky is aflame.
I know. You're thinking, "Of course you remember. That was today, and yesterday, and just about every day now."
Well, obviously. But this moment was my moment. We all had one—and many more since of course, but one moment we remember as the one when everything first changed for real for us—and this was mine. In this one the old Ulrica Storm drew back her bowstring taut, her hands screaming to quiver but refusing to, and let fly, once, twice. And whatever I am now then gazed emptily as the obscene slithering things that had until a minute before been my husband and daughter crashed to the paving stones and crumbled into smoke. It's odd, but even though it hasn't been that long I can't remember their faces a lot of the time. I guess they really only belonged to that other woman and she took them with her wherever she went.
Now, this doesn't make me special… I know that. None of us are, which is kind of the problem. All we are is still here, until we're not.
So, again, the sky is aflame. Where it's not, it's moonless and black as the inside of a coffin lid, which of course is precisely what it is. The tideless seas, stilled. The air stale and silent, as if it's given up on its purpose. All of it achurn with hopeless flame and sanguine tears, as one by one we fall like the last few dominoes in a long and torturous line. Where the endless night isn't rent by screams it's shrouded in the unmistakable quiet of finality: the kind that almost makes a scream feel welcome. At least a scream means life.
And always at our backs, urging us on with bowed head and silvery tears, is the Mother of Us All as She fades slowly to nothing, practically a ghost already.
Those tears are the only thing that keeps me from spitting in Her face, some days.
I know the tale, as do all of us who are left. In those early days most of us regular folk hadn't the first clue what was happening, only rumors of monster attacks somewhere away… and one particular rumor told mostly in frowning, saucer-eyed whispers. Out of thrice-damned Sharlayan it spread fast and in many slightly different versions, the way rumors always do, back when there still was a Sharlayan. She Herself won't say much about it even now. Still holds a candle for Her long-departed Chosen, like as not. (At least She's more or less given up on her accursed riddlespeak. Not much of a point in prodding hints or gentle nudges anymore.)
But it all lines up, those early stories and what little She'll admit. You look up into those wan, despondent eyes of Hers and you can mark the truth of it. The Warrior of Bloody Light and their band of Scion friends, trudging from out of the bowels of the star itself as the story goes. Heads bowed, shoulders slumped, bruised and bloodied, tails tucked between their legs in defeat. And it was She herself who bestowed the lashing on them.
She'd had a Plan A, of course: one She'd spent Eternity itself playing out. If you can suspend disbelief, at the start of it all life was paradise and all of us were beings of unthinkable light and majesty. But She did something to the world back then, knocked us all down on our arses, made flawed weaklings of us, and life a bastard for everyone. Wars, sickness, famine, plague, fires, floods, and the misery of thousands of generations of people everywhere across the Star… it was all Her doing. Personally. Sort of gives one pause to reevaluate their definition of "tough love", doesn't it?
By Her reckoning, all that misery and hardship was supposed to temper us as a people, toughen us up enough to beat back the torrent of despair she knew was on its way, the one working even now to scour the surface of our star clean of us. And after all those years—all the pain and anguish—the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and, at their head, the Warrior of Bloody Light were supposed to be the shining manifestations of all that strength. The best of us. Our big play.
But there was only one chance. She had to be sure they had it in them, and so She administered the test with Her blade. Fully expected to lose, so I gather.
But in spite of all the accolades, all the celebration and admiration of this vaunted bloody twit and their friends, before Her might—it beggars belief now, for all that a breath of wind might snuff her out like a torch—her Champion and their merry band weren't enough. We weren't enough. She'd wagered on us and lost; in our weaknesses we'd made a liar out of her. The philosophy that drove Her since the world was young was sundered as surely as if She'd done it Herself and She'd been exposed as the biggest fool who ever existed. Her heart broken in victory, She turned the best we had to offer away.
And then it was time for Plan B.
Her being a supreme deity forged of ageless bloody wisdom and all, naturally She hadn't put all her eggs in one basket. Just all the ones that had any hope of hatching.
She'd had the Sharlayans build a ship, see. Time, labor, and resources beyond counting went into it. They were to ferry what they could salvage of our way of life to the moon, itself a bigger ship piloted by baby rabbit people—and here I'll forgive you for taking that little nugget as a libel on how seriously She really took all this—and use the moon to fly off to some other star as isn't dying.
'Course, among those Noble Lords of Scholarly Pragmatism the priorities went like so: themselves first, then their libraries, records, and accumulated wisdom. Then came the other cream of the realm: the scholars, engineers, politicians, merchants, nobles, merchants, politicians, and merchants. The Warrior of Bloody Light and the Scions, the symbols of Her failure, got VIP seats. Then were admitted the rest of the Sharlayan people, followed by the plants and animals. The animals needed stables, and after them came the dung to fill those stables. At the end of the line—after all these were secured—were permitted whatever other people they could ferry up there before time ran out.
That all went about as you'd expect. Panic and chaos. No one was under any illusions that they'd get us all, not even Her. To their credit, they worked hard and fast to gather up as many as time allowed them. The Warrior of Bloody Light and the Scions did the same. But when things started to really fall apart on the surface, and the falling skies were everywhere and blasphemies were overrunning us, you'd best believe they took those seats. Don't know a soul who wouldn't have done. But more sods got lucky than would have without them, so there's that.
Everyone else? I reckon you know where this has been going. We failed the worthiness test a second time… and here we are.
Time's almost up for Her and for us, but for those chosen folk somewhere out there on that long-departed moon that shines no more on our dying world, or on their new star if they've found one… well. The great ruddy blast of despair that's making a meal of us will never be fully fed, and it will hunt them down too, sooner than they'll like, I'll warrant.
She knows it, too. Near as I can tell there never really was any hope in Plan B. It was just the longest reprieve She could buy as many of Her beloved children as possible if Plan A failed. A gentler, more drawn-out euthanasia. Godsspeed to them, I reckon… though in the end even gods can't outrun the inevitable.
She told me once, "Though thou hast been left behind upon this dying Star, thou and thy brethren drinketh no less of the draught of my love." Sure, nice story. Great lot of bleeding good that love of Hers did my family.
Still, I reckon I believe Her, for whatever either sentiment is worth. She didn't leave us to fend for ourselves, anyroad. Does what She can to help.
All the aether stored in the Mothercrystal was meant to slingshot Her Champion and their merry band off across the entirety of the sodding great expanse to face down whatever's causing all this. When they were found wanting—and while Our Most Noble of Benevolent Scholars were busy deciding who could live and who had to die—She did the only thing left to really do with all that power and put some kind of magic barrier around the Star. Bought the Great and Noble Lords a little extra time to grab some more karakuls and corpsefly specimens, and I suppose a handful more of us before the door to the last moon run slammed shut. There's only so much of it, so it's only a bandage on a mortal wound. But anyroad that shield is still up there, gossamer and thin, granting us a little more of the only gift She has left to give: time. I reckon keeping the flow of aether going into it is all that's keeping Her holding on until that day very soon now when either it's all spent or She is. Plan C, I guess you'd call it.
A few dragons stuck around. Something about their last bastion of hope failing them and there being no point in flying off elsewhere. A handful are still left, though the ones that begin at last to succumb are euthanized before they can become blasphemies a hundredfold more terrible than the rest. We learned that lesson early and well.
She had Her own merry band for a time, too. Her Twelve—real all this time, beggaring all belief—came out of wherever they've been hiding all this time to help the survivors. They, like Her, were old, tired, badly weakened, and all we had left. There are even a couple of them still around, giving aid and succor where and when they can. Took a bit of a fancy to Llymlaen myself, even, but whatever paradise their ilk enjoyed seems to have made them joyless and lustless even when there's nothing left to lose.
I look at Her now—aether thin and flickering like a candle at the end of its wick, wings drooping, downcast eyes damp with shame and regret—and in spite of all She's done, I can only pity Her. I've got none left for myself, after all. Besides, in the end it wasn't Her who was too weak to stop all this… it was us. And as for us—those of us left behind, mind—yeah, you knew all of this would wind back around to us eventually. After all, what's better than a story that's short and has a predefined ending?
We linger.
We stick together and we survive as long as we can hold out against the blasphemies, against the ones among us who'd rather go out quick and take a few of us with them, and against that soul-corrupting hopelessness. We've even made morbid little games out of it: Who's next to go? Will the last one remaining please turn out the lights? And so on.
We huddle up, back to back, clustered at the bottom of the great hill all this shite has flowed down, armed not with hope but with steel, a sneer, and the last animating bloody impulse left to us:
Sod death, and sod the End.
I'm Ulrica Storm. And I'm just one of…
