Oct 24, 2016
Fan artwork of Genji done for my Sister for her birthday card this year. Genji is really hard work to draw, but in the end I actually had a lot of fun drawing him.
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Fan artwork of Genji done for my Sister for her birthday card this year. Genji is really hard work to draw, but in the end I actually had a lot of fun drawing him.
It would be an understatement to say that this has been a difficult year. But I am primarily posting to make this feel slightly more official and possibly help others to understand.
So as of this week I have officially had my diagnosis changed from Borderline Personality Disorder to Depersonalized Schizoid. (Officially: Derealisation-Depersonalization Disorder with Schizoid traits) This has followed a lot of referrals, doctors appointments, and multi-part psychiatric assessments which has been unbelievably hard work just to get someone to listen to what I’m saying and understand. I’ve had a whole host of unhelpful reactions (from an actual doctor) such as: “If you lived in Syria do you think you’d still be this bothered about this?” Anyway, this diagnosis has been hard won, and while titles are not the be-all and end-all this change means a lot to me because it means I can actually ask for the correct help as well as successfully explain to others what life is like for me, with justified medical recognition behind it.
If, like most people, you are unfamiliar with mental health labels (aside from the big ones like Depression, Anxiety and Bipolar Disorder) I would like to explain. However everyone’s experiences are different so my descriptions are primarily my experience. Depersonalization-Derealisation Disorder: Constantly feeling as if I or my surroundings aren’t real, feeling as if everyone around me is an automaton, or is behaving according to some sort of script, feeling unfamiliar to myself (my voice isn’t mine, nor my reflection), feeling ambivalent about basically everything, feeling perpetually alienated and isolated, as if I am an alien on a foreign planet and all the inhabitants here are talking and caring about things I have 0% interest in, and vice versa, so I have to spend all my time translating between the two languages. Familiar things can suddenly seem unfamiliar to me (logically I know they aren’t, but my feelings tell me otherwise), feeling like I don’t belong to me, feeling as though a thick impenetrable bubble is between the world and I, often senses of taste and feelings are dulled or outright absent. Schizoid Personality Disorder: (First off it is not biologically related to Schizophrenia it’s just that the prefix ‘Schiz ‘means division; split, cleavage, from Latinized form of Greek ‘skhizo’) Schizoid’s are typically described as: withdrawn, emotionally distanced, cold and aloof. But also have a rich inner fantasy world with which they are often preoccupied or hide within. This is certainly true of me. The difference between this being a healthy imagination and a mental health problem is that in a Schizoid it is a total defence and barrier from the outer world. Social contact is a strain and will totally drain my inner resources, and more often than not I prefer my own company, but again the difference between being an introvert and Schizoid is that you are constantly aware of yourself as an object in other people’s worlds, so there is a persistent hypervigilance (hyper-active monitoring of one’s surroundings, also seen in some anxiety disorders) that is active when in the company of anyone else. It is also active when drunk or asleep. The only time this turns off is when alone. Although most schizoids are outwardly highly functioning, they can internally feel extremely fragile (hence the constant distancing and holding everyone at an arm’s length). To me this is experienced as a physical crumbling or disintegrating sensation. Sometimes when with someone else I feel as if I am sugar being stirred into water, vanishing before them, but they haven’t noticed. I’m sure you can imagine the combination of these two states can manifest themselves pretty badly. It is a big deal for me to reveal all of this, being naturally.... withdrawn and private, but I vowed to myself that when possible and appropriate I would speak out to add another voice to the dismantling of mental health stigma. I also say this so that those who know me might understand why I am the way I am a little better. One of the biggest problems with mental health is that it is impossible to tell where the person ends and the mental illness starts (unlike with physical illness where the parts are clearly defined) so I just kind of need others to understand which bits are me and which bits are Derealized-Schizoid disorder. Thank you for reading.
Junkrat fan art, my favourite facial expression of his. Process below. :)
Reaper fan art.
Selph: Part 5
If you, the reader, have become invested in this story do not worry for it is you who will decide the ending. The outcome for Selph lies in your hands, but first you must answer one question to determine the ending:
If the Guardian were to stop trying to change things and just tried to grow one plant what do you think would happen:
A - If she put all her efforts into just one place I’m sure something beautiful would grow.
B – Some ‘thing’ would probably grow but it wouldn’t be perfect or beautiful.
C – I don’t think anything would grow, or if something grew it wouldn’t last, everything is too fragmented and broken.
Your answer will take you to Part 5 A, B or C, respectively. Remember, you chose this outcome.
Selph: Part 5A – Ideal
There was nothing but venom and darkness all around, she could feel hatred and pure seething hunger encompassing her body. But somehow she wasn’t dead.
Suddenly she was choking as if underwater, instinctively she swam until her head pierced the surface and she gulped in breathable air. She was shivering and shaking uncontrollably but somehow she managed to climb out before flopping on a coal black rock. And it wasn’t the only thing that was black; she was covered in a substance like midnight black treacle. It clung to her body in a stubbornly sticky manner. It wasn’t just on the outside she could feel it inside too. It slowed her body down, sitting in all her limbs, her lungs crackled with every breath. She crumpled over choking and spluttering, coughing up great lumps of black goo. It splattered all over the rock at first dripping innocently before burning and sizzling through the rock like acid through flesh.
“I’ve missed you.”
The words echoed around the Guardian and for a second she wasn’t sure who had spoken, but of course it was the only other being here.
“I’ve missed you too.” She said truthfully before emptying her lungs once more.
“What do we do?” She asked. “I’ve tried everything...”
“Spell book.”
“No, they don’t make sense any more, the magic is all wrong.”
But the Maw pressed feelings of insistence into her. Still covered in black goo she flicked through the spell book, all of it was still total gibberish... apart from one spell on the last page:
Restore Friend
Of course! It was the only spell untouched because her partner had never been dead, he’d been here the whole time. The Guardian shakily stood up and cast her spell. After a few discerning minutes nothing happened but then her companion surfaced and climbed onto the rock next to her. It was her best friend but not as she remembered. He moved with a limp and his wings were reduced to their skeletal structure. He’d never fly the way he used to. The trace of a smile settled in his eyes.
Together they walked the land of Selph and in every footprint they left behind grew tiny multicoloured mushrooms and all manner of single celled creatures who over time metamorphosised into darkly beautiful fey faeries and dragonflies.
As time passed in a timeless manner the once alive Maw transformed back into a lifeless canyon. It gradually started to fill in like wounded skin tissues trying to heal. It wasn’t easy, and in their time apart the guardians now spoke different languages resulting in many hostile arguments. But eventually, wordlessly they came again to understand one another.
Though he could no longer fly, the restored Guardian could move through the earth like water whenever he wished. And so he from beneath and she from above painstakingly knitted Selph back together.
Selph never truly healed, its cuts and scars still plainly visible and the weather as erratic as ever. The canyon became a valley through which a new magical river ran. Instead of the Maw it became known as Moor Valley and it was there that life flourished first. Huge mushrooms, higher than titans grew spreading magical bioluminescent spores in every direction. Mighty oaks and borogoves grew into a staggering forest spreading for countless acres around the valley. The black shadowy plants still grew but they were no longer mouldy, their leaves glittered in every shade of indigo and their flowers were a midnight phthalo black. Stars appeared in the sky again through night as bright as before, and rainbow firestorms danced on the horizon.
Eventually Selph became strong enough to support all the powerful beings that once lived here. Dragons returned to the skies, phoenixes guarded every fire, unicorns soundlessly galloped the forests. Pegasus, cockatrice and shape-shifters reappeared, even the humanoids came back. The world was anything but peaceful and there was never truly any harmony, all the creatures were too powerful and their voices too strong, regular discord and dissonance storms descended. But united the Guardians of old resolved conflict and settled the weather where possible. She swept her wings and he shook the earth and the land of Selph found precarious balance once more.
The End.
Selph: Part 5B – Potential
The Guardian floated like driftwood through the abyss. Though nothing felt right at all, weirdly it felt like home. Opening her eyes shadows of the land above rippled before her. They appeared far away as if cast on the sides of mountains but reaching out her hand she found she could grasp them and examine them for a time before they burst in her hands and dribbled disgustingly down her limbs.
It was thick and dense and dark down here, it felt like trying to move through black syrup. Suddenly all the shadows turned their awful faces toward her staring with absent eyes. They were everywhere, in all directions, even below and above. Though initially disconcerting there was no overwhelming fear. In all that had already happened, how could these shadows be any worse? They meant nothing.
Swimming in a direction she hoped was up she snarled at the shadows as she passed them, when she finally breached the surface it was impossible to tell how long she’s been gone. Only exhaustion seemed to suggest any length of time. Fatigue sat defiantly in every limb as she climbed to steady ground. Sleep overtook her and when she woke there was but one emotion in her heart; disdain of the purest kind. As she stood up and gazed at the inside of the canyon she hated everything with irrational vengeance. It started deep within her core and exploded into every fibre of her being until she was pounding on the canyon walls, clawing at the rock with her talons and ripping great chunks of flesh away.
“I hate it! I hate it here! This place is so unbearable! You’re unbearable! I’m unbearable! I can’t exist here! I can’t! And it’s your fault! You destroyed the land, took my friend and ate everything we ever built! I’ve battled the darkness too long, now I’M THE DARKNESSAND I HATE EVERYTHING!!!” Soon her ravings weren’t even words, just primal screaming and snarling. She flew up and down the inside of the canyon cutting it with razor talons and wings. Every cut revealed bodily flesh beneath, white and blue and red and pouring with thick blood. The Maw growled in retaliation its empty mournful roars filling the sky. It shredded the guardian to ribbons, but they were too evenly matched. When both were broken, bleeding and bruised she landed on the top edge of the canyon between its huge rocky teeth. Apart from herself and the canyon there was nothing else here, everything had been eaten. There was just miles and miles of intangible nothing in all directions.
“This is it.” She said defiantly, bloody spittle running from the corner of her mouth. She pulled out an Obsidian Dragon-bone dagger in one hand, and her heartstone in the other.
“Either we find a way through this or I am going to end everything right now!”
The Maw quivered in response. “Do what you will. Nothing Matters.”
“Nothing matters for me either, and everything we had can never come back.”
Silence stretched out between them seemingly lasting for a millennia.
“But what if we could make something else?”
The Maw rumbled deeply, like a cat purring or a lion preparing to growl she wasn’t sure.
“We could create something else, but not separately. We belong together, not apart. Throw your heartstone in.”
The Guardian examined it glinting in the eerie light. The heartstone was the most precious part of her body, as was her kind’s genetic make-up. It was to be protected at all costs, and it could only ever be given, not taken. Looking at it the entirety of her life flashed past her, but now she found the heartstone meant nothing to her. It was... an inanimate object.
Without feeling she dropped the heartstone and watched it fall through the canyon into the abyss. As it disappeared in the darkness a weight that she never realised she was carrying disappeared. All the splintering pain in her torso vanished and she felt like she could breathe and see again... though Selph was much darker.
The dagger became a paintbrush and from where she was standing she swept it in broad strokes creating a horizon, a serene sky and land. She flew allowing feathers, scales and skin to fall becoming the beginnings of a new Selph. At the end of her flight she flicked her paintbrush creating a brand new star splattered sky.
Growth was slow at first, for a long time all that grew were mushrooms; tiny tar black mushrooms covering the starkly flat floor. It was a long long time before the land began to crease and fold making hills, mountains and valleys. Then all the water fell from the ocean in the sky and landed on the earth making rivers and waterfalls anew. After that the plants started growing, they snuck out of the ground with long vines but all were inky black. In fact everything was black; every shade of black imaginable. Trees grew gnarled and huge with charcoal trunks and exquisite glass ebony flowers. They bore black leaves and midnight fruits, berries, and nuts.
The radiation and the magic remained mingled but it settled into a new way of being, finding new routes through the land and opening up mighty magic waterways. The magic flowed freely, thick and black for all to use. Mythical wildlife appeared; black rodents and bats, griffons, colossus, dragons and unicorns; all of them black. Then came new ethereal faerie folk with black lace wings and gnarled and twisted faces. Their oaken hands and anciently dark magic transformed Selph into mighty natural palace that spread across the land.
Finally a whole host of new creatures evolved out of what was there, chaos shape-shifters, feathered humanoids, and sentient plants, with their black leaves and feathers and magic. Every being was exquisitely, beautifully dark, built on a foundation of irrationality that resulted in hideous battles. Titans clashed, dragons roared, and storms struck, it was a snarling tangled mass of ferocity.
Selph became a dangerous black magically infused chaos that hung in delicate balance. When the balance tipped too far one way or the other the Guardian righted it. It barely resembled the land it had been before, but there was life. It was black and black and black for a long time, it wasn’t until several eras later that for no reason what-so-ever the trees produced deep rainbow blossom, and the mushrooms released spores of all colours so that when the Guardian viewed the world from above it appeared to her as a black canvas speckled with colour.
The End.
Selph: Part 5C – The End
It was dark.
Nothing but darkness.
There was faint music coming from somewhere, long mournful calls in a chest piercingly painful key. The melody spilled out in minor, echoing as if played down long stone corridors, but as the Guardian strained to hear more she couldn’t tell if the music was coming from somewhere outside or whether it was inside her head. She listened with mild interest; mostly confused as to where the sound was even coming from.
She manoeuvred her way around, it wasn’t really flying or swimming but she moved weightlessly somehow. Looking around she saw bubbles with movement inside. Catching one, she tilted her head as she examined it in her hand. They were memories; bubbles with all the memories of Selph in them. She floated for a time, catching and watching them, seeing the beauty that had been, the destruction that was, and the land tearing itself apart all over again. But it was as if they were happing to someone else, somewhere else. Not to her and not here.
One bubble contained footage of some small creatures when the ground had first torn open just before her partner had died. They were small black creatures with funny long fingers and giggly cackles; like a hyena’s. She’d once known their name but it eluded her, as if someone had just stolen that information from her head. They were scampering about up and down the trees collecting fruit. She saw it from their perspective, low to the ground clutching a fruit prize in one hand before them. Then the sky opened up with fire the ground shook and there was heat and fire everywhere. She watched as if floating just behind each one, as they died one after the other; their tiny lungs coughing out ash and smoke. It would have been unbearably sad but it seemed as if someone had stolen her ability to care as well. She observed, detached as if she were watching something dull and monotonous. The sadness couldn’t seem to get to her.
At some point she must’ve closed her eyes and slept, or drifted, or both. Her body weightlessly floating through the black space, it would have felt pleasant if she were able to feel anything. Day after day she drifted; neither directing herself nor caring about where she ended up, until she woke up and found that the gravity was back. Opening her eyes she was suddenly blinded by the presence of stuff in front of her. After floating in the nothing, all the ‘stuff’ seemed incredibly loud. Allowing her eyes to adjust she saw she was on a rock in the bottom of the canyon, the nothingness stretching endlessly below forever. Above angry clouds crackled and rumbled with the threat of a thunder storm. The guardian watched, but somehow it all just seemed irrelevant now.
With an experienced swoop she soared out of the canyon and walked bare foot across the sand, rocks and shards of opal glass. It was windy around her, sometimes it rained, but even though she could see the wind and the rain drops touching her body she couldn’t feel them. It was like an invisible wall blocked her off from everything. The Guardian just walked, and walked and walked, not using her wings, she walked pointlessly, endlessly and without purpose. Around her Selph seemed to be having another go at Life. But it was if it wasn’t happening to her, She watched grass and mushrooms grow, tiny insects appeared with their metallically coloured bodies reflecting the light. It’s just that it all meant nothing to her. Once ‘growth’ had meant something to her, she could feel the echo of her past self, that saw new life as positive and hopeful, chance, potential...but all that was gone now, it was just stuff happening. She continued her pointless walking, treading on flowers, rocks and bugs without thought or remorse.
Over time small life became bigger life, tree’s and birds reappeared along with all manner of bizarre creatures that she’d once known the names of but now just couldn’t seem to recall. Sometimes she sat and watched, sometimes she just sat glazed over staring through everything rather than at it.
After an indeterminable amount of time had passed she suddenly realized that Selph had stabilized into a massive sprawling city. It buzzed with life and activity, though she couldn’t remember how or when it had got there. Some part of her registered that Selph had stabilized without her constant interfering. Maybe she wasn’t needed after all. Maybe she’d never been needed. Maybe her and her partner hadn’t been watching over Selph like protective guardians but had monopolized it as powerful dictators. Or maybe they’d answered its every beck and call as if they were slaves to it... it was impossible to tell now.
Not that it mattered anymore.
Over time she noticed that everything seemed greyer, the guardian felt trapped in the middle of a thick cloud, unable to get out, but not wanting to anyway. Everything was exactly the same but it wasn’t right. All the creatures had become automatons; their spark of life had gone.
One day the Guardian assumed the form of a daughter of the forest with vines for hair and thick bark scales down her back. The forest was full of life but something felt off, she watched with narrowed eyes as she trod through the thick sprawling plant life. Birds sang wilfully, small felines caught rodents, she saw a wolf pack bring down a stag, but all the reactions were delayed. Sometimes the creatures paused for too long or seemed to freeze mid movement. She climbed a fallen tree overgrown with thick moss and tangles and sat for a while. As dusk drew a forest snake wound its way around the tree and sat beside her. It was so long it coiled around the trunk thrice and there was still more to spare. It raised its head to her eye level.
“The forest is making me sad.”
The Guardian sat still, aware she was being spoken to but unable to think of anything to say in return.
“None of them are real. It doesn’t matter how many mice I eat, I’m never full because there’s nothing there.”
There was truth in his words, the eyes of all the animals were hollow, the trees had no souls, the water had no reflections. She leapt down and spoke to a raven. It said all the right things but it was if it was reciting them rather than responding spontaneously. Then all the ravens laughed, but it was if their laughter was stuck in a loop, she could even hear the weird way the sound morphed as the loop finished and it started from the beginning again. She felt instantly cold on the inside; a dark frosty well opening inside her stomach.
Then she saw the stag, it was munching grass, but it was the same stag she’d seen the wolves bring down earlier.... she recognised the pattern of the antlers. He chewed the grass thoughtfully but as he raised his head she saw there were three copies of the same stag, all standing in the exact same location. The back of her neck prickled.
She saw the flower garden and from a distance it appeared normal, though eerily still, like someone had frozen the wind. As she drew closer she saw that everything was the right shape but was all coloured in wrong. The roses looked as if they were made of rotting flesh; the blood lilies dripped with real blood, the blue bells were textured like tree bark in a weird repeating pattern. The snow drops were black but it was like someone had scribbled on the black with a crayon.
When she passed by the snake again on her way out of the forest it hadn’t moved, its head frozen in the exact position she’d left it in. Her chest tightened.
Outside the forest she assumed her usual form and flew to the city. She hovered invisibly through it observing. The laughs were too long or too shrill, the footsteps too loud, none of the people looked at each other when in conversation their gaze slightly to the left. And no one’s shadows matched, as if the sun were in a different position for each individual. She landed softly, dispelling her invisibility. Someone walked up to her but instead of stepping around or saying excuse me they just stopped and stood, swaying gently as if waiting for something. She reached out and touched the side of his forehead. The person didn’t react but as she made physical contact he instantly shattered, crumbling in on himself like a broken vase unable to support itself from within. Then the others around them shattered, then the buildings... Everything was hollow inside.
The Guardian stood still for a second watching Selph crumble before flying into the sky. It was as if she’d started an avalanche.... everything in all directions crumbling, faces caved in on themselves, trees shattered like fragile pottery.
Everything had been hollow. Everything had been a shell.
Looking around Selph was blanketly flat in all directions... there was no littered remains of pottery fragments even the canyon had vanished. It didn’t seem real. Suddenly she noticed a huge black thorn in her chest. It was in so far it was coming out her back. Where had that come from? How long had it been there? She jerked trying to dislodge it, It looked like it ought to hurt but she felt nothing. When she finally extracted it she collapsed feeling inexplicably weak.
The pain had gone... A pain she’d totally forgotten about because of how long it had been there.... she’d been so used to it that she’d stopped noticing, but now its absence was starkly noticeable. The thorn shrivelled up in front of her withering into a poisonous crumpled husk. She felt like a husk herself. Selph was a husk.
There were tears streaming from her eyes though she felt no actual sadness. There was nothing inside... even she was now a shell.
She pulled out her heartstone, studying it carefully with her hawk eyes. Once it has sat a precious gem in her body, reflecting glittering light of all colours. Now it looked like weathered rock with holes in. It was unbelievably light as well, it used to be weighty in her grasp. Then she was still, the heartstone in her hand, and she stayed there for a long time.
There was nothing, the heartstone meant nothing to her now. It was an inanimate object incapable of anything. Her eyes blinked slowly... she was so tired... so very very tired. She squeezed her thumb and fingers together around the stone, it crumbled into a chalky dust without much effort on her part. It had must’ve been long dead inside her. It didn’t feel like dying... she just sort of stopped.
A winged statue in a flat land, as dawn broke the statue broke into fragments like a pottery casing. There was hollow emptiness inside. The wings crumbled, the eyes fell away, every long limb cracked and shattered into a pile. Then the land vanished, and the sky... everything was gone. The Guardian, and Selph were no more.
The End.
Selph: Part 3
In the land of Selph nothing moved. Everything had come totally to a halt. The wind was stilled, even the clouds hung stationary, suspended petrified mist.
Suddenly there was a terrible roar as something shattered the bubble and what appeared to be a meteor slammed into the ground. Shockwaves reverberated and in the crater where the meteor had landed the long lost Guardian stood up. Speechless, she climbed out of the crater and flew above the land drinking in the horrors of what lay beneath her outstretched wings.
Landing on a mountain top she stood shaking and crying at everything she’d seen. Being all seeing, images of every event that had happened in her absence pressed themselves into her. The loss of her partner was too great and such was her sadness and despair that her heart poured into the land until great earthen hands grew up out of the ground and the land started tearing at itself. Her cries echoed down from the mountain turning into shards of opal glass that rained onto the land. Hungrily the land absorbed every shard and with a flap of her great wings the clouds parted for a time so that the sunlight streamed down. The Maw yawned pulling in all the sunlight, leaving none for anyone else.
What has happened here was too much to bear. She thought of leaving again but before she could tears overtook her. She lay her body along the ground and the earth shook from the force of her sobbing. Her tears were the only water Selph had had in years.
When she was finally done crying, she turned her attention to what she could do to restore the land. Sitting patiently she willed grass to grow and shielded the soft green blades with her wings. Eventually she had to sleep and upon awakening she discovered a thunder strike had started a wildfire which had burnt all the grass away. So she looked to the sky, she tried to clear the clouds away but they were too thick and too many, so instead she made them all rain; emptying themselves onto the land. But it was never ending, no matter how much it rained there were just too many more clouds forming.
The uncontrolled magic was getting out of hand so the Guardian sat carefully untangling the magic from the radiation and reshaping it into the rivers of old. With that sorted she turned the magic into nutrients and scattered them across the soil. The water began to collect and form natural rivers of its own, soon plants started to appear but they were black and mouldy. She sat carefully examining them, trying to rewrite the magic that formed them. But with her back turned the magic and radiation tangled up together again in a big black knot of angry buzzing energy. With the magic out of place the water vanished and all the plants died.
Seething and distraught, she realised how backwards Selph was, so she flew and switched the sun and moon around before reversing all the stars so they made light instead of absorbing it, but as she did so Up became Down, the stars fell from the sky and exploded as they crashed into the floor. Now disorientated and nauseous the Guardian hovered, not wanting to sit on the ceiling nor tumble into the nothingness below. But soon she grew exhausted and she let herself drift as she slept.
When she awoke she realised she’d completely overlooked the insects and microlife that invisibly kept the world turning. She shook her hair so that a multitude of tiny life forms fell and buried themselves in the soil. Under her watchful eye the microlife got to work transforming the earth. As she grew tired she placed wards to protect the miniature life forms and their hard work. And in her sleep she dreamt soft dreams of her old Guardian companion.
As dawn happened in reverse the Guardian opened her eyes and saw nothing. Literally nothing, all the life was gone, but so was the soil, the land, the clouds, the sky.... everything. Shaken to the core she flew trying to work out where everything had gone. How could there be nothing? Fundamentally disturbed she screamed for help into the nothing, but answer came there none.
The next morning there was land again, not whole, but fragmented. There were chunks missing, none of it felt the same and the gravity was weird. Quickly her confusion turned to anger and she expelled her wrath upon the land of Selph sending ball after ball of flaming fury in all directions. Forked lightning spilled from her finger tips and shards of hate fell from her wings, cutting into the landscape. Where the shards fell blood spewed out in fountanious red geysers before gradually slowing and staining the ground.
Empty of wrathful anger the Guardian sat on the floor not caring where the shards fell nor if they cut her too. There was nothing she could do and despair overwhelmed her.
Selph: Part 2
It had been years since the guardian had visited Selph. One crooked black plant grew alone in the rocky desert. The closest living thing was a single spider some 100 miles away. The fiery canyon had burned out, leaving behind coldness and stark nothingness. In fact there was so much of an absence that what little was left from the land started falling into the abyss below, never to be seen again.
Wild inexplicable weather ferociously defiled the land of Selph, twisting it into a hollow shadow of its former self. Inevitably the old rivers of magic mingled with the radiation from the depths of the canyon, turning the land inside out. Up was down, night was day, the stars absorbed light and shadows moved separately from their objects. Plants choked on radiation poisoning and the once nutrient rich soil turned to ash in the wake of the uncontrolled magic.
Over time the canyon came to life and yawned its great maw destroying all attempts of growing life with every opening. Life did try to develop; for where there’s a will there’s a way, but the cumulated combination of toxic levels of magic radiation turned each creature and plant backwards on itself making them into perversions of their former glory. The once majestic maticores spines grew inward, its skin fell away and odd growths appeared on its eyes and insides. Plants strangled themselves, their roots growing up out the ground in a confused attempt to find water.
Somehow over time greenery emerged, balanced on a fragile eco system, their tiny leaves drank in rejected starlight, afraid to produce flowers or grow too tall up lest a wind storm tear them from the ground. But that was the year of the acid rain, it fell solidly for months burning holes in all the leaves and finally reducing them to disintegrated piles to blow away in the breeze.
Thick clouds formed in a rain that never fell and the land became starves of sunlight. Thunder cracked and lightning flashed scorching the earth and starting wild fires that never seemed to end. Years passed and the guardian had not returned, the maw had eaten everything and land fell eerily silent. Nothing breathed and nothing moved.
All was silent.
Selph: Part 1
Once upon a time there was a place called Selph, it was a deeply magical place where anything was possible. Selph was a wondrous place of blue moons, star splattered skies and endless days. Of course it wasn’t all good and safe; shadowy creatures lurked in the dark with insatiable hunger and desire.
The land was regularly at the mercy of chaotic weather; sudden blizzards, treacherous thunderstorms, earth quakes and wild firestorms. It was mostly ok because the land was watched over by two guardians; one black, one white. They swept their beautiful wings and kept the land in balance.
Over time the weather changes became worse and increasingly violent, there was no escaping the dense, dark storms that descended, nor the fire when it rained from the sky and came up through the earth at the same time.
Overworked, the guardians became tired and exhausted. In their sleep the land fell into disrepair, in a constant state of overwhelming turbulence. One day without warning a colossal meteor struck the land and all life perished, even the thick rivers of magic couldn’t keep the land alive. Upon awakening the guardians looked out horrified at the dead landscape before them. As they set about trying to restore the land a great canyon opened up beneath them, an entrance to the firey hell beneath. As the boiling magma poured out the rising heat tore one of the guardians wings to shreds. Unable to fly the guardian tumbled into the chaotic magma beneath and burned from the outside in. Distraught at the loss of her partner the other guardian wept; her tears falling in thick pools upon the land and cooling it down. But she was unable to stay. Without her partner and with the land destroyed there was nothing for her there, so she flew high into the sky and pierced the bubble to the void where she went in search of other lands.
Without the guardians the land became desolate, everything that tried to grow was killed with either fire or frost. Even the hungry shadowy creatures fell and lay waste to the chaotic streams of purple magic. Nothing survived and nothing grew. Occasionally the lone guardian came back leaving trails of glittering shards from her wings all over the barren landscape, but staying was too unbearable. Remaining drained her spirit and her magic, so her visits became fewer and fewer until Selph became static; frozen in time and unusable. The guardian locked the door to Selph and never returned.