When the world of Retos settled its rivers singing, its mountains breathing, its mortals blinking into their first sunrise Elder stood silently among the life it had shaped. It watched them learn to walk, to touch the soil, to speak imperfect sounds. Wonder bloomed in its chest, a fragile warmth it could not describe.
Night drifted to its side, shadows curling like soft arms.
"You have done well," she whispered. "Life answers to you."
Elder lowered its head shyly. "I… only gave it a spark."
Dream floated forward, weaving soft visions over the treetops. "Dreams will come tonight," they murmured.
Destiny studied the mortals, eyes swirling with new threads. "Paths have begun."
Destruction-and-Creation flickered. "What breaks may also build."
Death closed their eyes. "And when they reach their end, I will guide them."
Elder looked at its companions Night's ancient presence, the children's raw cosmic power and felt, for a moment, like it belonged among them.
But Night's gaze suddenly tightened.
"Come," she said softly. "We must return to our realms. Let the mortals grow without our shadows hovering above them."
Elder nodded.
Night opened a curtain of darkness with a wave of her hand. Her children stepped through Dream dissolving into mist, Destiny into threads, Destruction-and-Creation into flame and ash, Death into a quiet void. Elder stepped into its own shimmering gateway.
And the creators were gone.
Left behind were the angels and demons created from Elder's breath, forged with its power, bound to it… or so Elder thought.
For the moment, Elder's light vanished from the sky, and something shifted.
The demons prowled forward, claws scraping soil, eyes blazing with disdain.
One spat at the ground. "These creatures are soft, weak, barely aware this is their world?"
Another brandished its claws. "We were shaped from power. They were shaped from dirt."
A third snarled. "Why do they walk free while we kneel?"
The angels looked at them sharply.
"You speak out of turn," their leader said, wings flaring. "The Elders' will made these mortals. You will respect that."
But one angel did not bow.
He stepped forward, his wings wider, brighter, fiercer than the others' silver light hardened into something sharp.
"They were shaped without understanding," he said coldly. "We were shaped from the Elder's word. We are the voice made flesh. Why should flesh made of soil rule this world?"
The demons murmured approval, their flames snapping.
"They should serve us," the angel continued. "Or fall beneath us."
The leader of the angels stepped back in shock. "You would lead demons?!"
"I would lead anything," the rebel angel replied, "that remembers what we are. We were born to more than obedience. We were born from divinity."
The demons gathered behind him, forming a half-circle of flame and hatred.
The loyal angels raised their spears. "Stand down, traitor."
The air split with tension.
A battle was about to break reality open.
But a tremor passed through Retos.
Light gathered.
Not from the sky.
From within the mortals themselves as if their fear had summoned something ancient.
Silver-blue radiance formed into a figure.
Elder appeared.
Its eyes were not angry. Not frightened.Only… disappointed.
The demons snarled. The angels bowed. The traitor angel straightened, unrepentant.
"You return," he said, voice ringing through the world. "To defend the dirt-born?"
Elder's voice trembled at first. "Why do you do this?"
"Because I remember what you forgot," the angel hissed. "We came first. We hold your power. This world belongs to us. Let the mortals kneel or let them die."
Before Elder could reply, he stepped forward, wings blazing with stolen righteousness.
"Stand with me," he commanded the demons. "We will claim Retos!"
The demons roared.
The angels cried out in alarm.
Even the mountains quivered.
Elder stepped forward once.
The very air bowed.
The traitor froze mid-step.
"Look at yourself," Elder whispered voice now resonating with cosmic weight. "You speak with pride… but you do not understand my power."
"I understand enough," he snarled. "You made me. I am your equal"
"No," Elder said.
A blinding pulse spiralled from its chest, silent but absolute. The traitor angel staggered, clutching his chest as his silver glow began to flicker.
"What what are you?"
"I gave you light," Elder said softly. "And I now take it back."
His wings dimmed. His radiance collapsed inward. His armour cracked. His spear dissolved to ash.
An angel no more.
He fell to his knees, gasping, trembling, stripped of celestial power.
The demons recoiled, horrified.
The loyal angels stared in stunned silence.
Elder stepped closer.
"You are no longer angel," it said. "Not demon. Not light. Not shadow."
It touched his forehead with one delicate finger.
"You are Scourge."
Blackened light burst from the mark twisting, burning, corrupting. His hair darkened. His once-brilliant eyes flickered into embers. His wings shrivelled into jagged, broken remnants.
He let out a cry half scream, half roar.
The first of a new kind.
"And you," Elder said, turning to the demons behind him, "have chosen to follow him."
The demons lowered their heads, accepting judgment with snarling pride.
Elder raised both hands.
The ground split.
An abyss opened vast, spiralling, filled with molten shadow.
"The Below," Elder declared. "The deepest part of my realm. A place where your fire will not burn upward."
The Scourge looked up at Elder with hatred that tasted like broken divinity.
"So this is your justice," he hissed. "Cast aside your first-born?"
"No," Elder said. "This is mercy."
The abyss swallowed them.
Scourge fell first screaming defiance as he plummeted.
The demons followed laughing wildly, eager for new dominion in the dark.
The chasm sealed.
Silence fell.
Elder stood alone in the twilight of Retos, wings trembling, heart aching.
The loyal angels approached, kneeling.
"Your will is done," they whispered.
Elder nodded, but sadness weighed its voice.
"Return to my realm," it said. "Guard the high places. Let the mortals grow without fear."
They ascended.
Night watched from her distant shadows. Dream wept quiet visions of what could have been. Death marked the first stain on Elder's soul. Destiny rewove the threads around Scourge's fall. Destruction-and-Creation felt something new: consequence.
And far away
in the shadowed forests of Eroden
Ellas lifted his head.
He felt the birth of the Below.
He felt the first angel fall.
And he whispered:
"Good."