Morgfyre had to refrain himself from tapping his foot, or showing any other
signs of the impatience he was feeling. That show of indiscipline wouldn't do
for one of the higher ranking warriors of the Second Circle, but honestly! The
meeting had dragged on for quite a while within the Assembly Hall and he was
quite eager to leave and meet his mate, Thaleil of the Fifth.

Ah, Thaleil...his mind wandered at the simple thought of her. She was as
cooling as the sky and as sharp as Winter. She may be shy about her ideas, but
when she did open up to him he found her thoughts quite profound. At least what
he could understand of them. Thaleil was the one who taught him about the power
of the Mind over that of the sword. Or the trident, as that was his preferred
weapon. She placed his feet on the beginnings of the 'Path of Enlightenment' as
she called it.

The rather heavily armored god that had been speaking at the podium about some
new training methods or other seemed to be finishing up with his boring lecture
now. Though, to Morgfyre's dismay, he was swiftly replaced by an eager looking
goddess who promised to be just as longwinded. These assemblies always did
strike him as useless and uninformative. Training sequences were the others'
show, when he had to train his unit, he took them out into the Void to
meditate, and sometimes to fend off a meandering half-formed that had the gall
to attack them. Only the sharpest, most solid warriors were under his command.

Finally the female speaker stepped down and Morgfyre quickly glanced around for
the next speaker, glaring pointedly at anyone who seemed at the point of
standing up. With a satisfied click of his tongue, he nodded to the others
equal to his rank, ignored the rest and was the first to leave the Assembly
Hall, his crimson robes swishing behind him.

Father Sun was falling below the horizon and a few of the newly awakened stars
were already visible twinkling eagerly in the sky by the time Morgfyre found
his elusive and beautiful quarry. Not in the best of moods after being simply
forgotten for one of her most interesting of projects, he strode somewhat
huffily through the tall, swaying hands of yellow grass to where he saw Tahliel
crouched, looking down at something.

He sidled up quietly over her left side and peered critically at what had made
his mate forget their little meeting. It was a small nature spirit of some
sort, purple and resembling some creation of Bollinkin’s with a fuzzy tail.
It was chattering away at her, its little tail twitching to punctuate its every
word.

How like Tahliel to listen to the story of even the smallest of creatures,
thought Morgfyre fondly and his mood immediately began to thaw.

"Ahem." He said, blinking in bemusement at the spirit who promptly dashed off
in fear.

"Oh, hello Morgie!" She turned around and smiled, her soft black hair falling
over a shoulder. He glared at her and she returned his withering look coolly.
"I am sorry I didn't show up, but oh! That little creature knew some quite
interesting things and I knew you'd find me eventually."

"Ah, no matter darling. We're together now." He said with a soft grin and
wrapped a muscled arm around her thin waist, pulling her close to his side.
They sat upon the soft grass of the pasture then, heads bent close together
and, as their caressing whispers floating away upon dancing zephyrs, Mother
Night cooled the land and the stars hummed in the stillness.

***

"No, no!" Tahliel cried and her face twisted in agony and grief. She thrust one
of her thin arms through the ranks of Second Circle warriors to try and reach
Morgfyre, but was kept back by the stolid faced Elders who now surrounded the
wounded god. Morgfyre's eyes passed over Tahliel, but he did not see her, not
properly, not like he truly wanted to. He wielded his trident with such a
terrible calmness and killer intent that even these divine fighters feared to
attack him.

Then one stepped forward, Terentia, and proclaimed that he was no longer
welcome on the First World and that he was to be cast into the Void, a Traitor.
A traitor! He would show them, he would kill all of them! The fools! His trident
began to hum and glow a hellish red, and he raised his arm to strike and the
circle widened slightly, nervous faces glaring at him.

Then Tahliel's anguished wail reached him from outside the circle of enemies,
and he knew that he could not fight them. Not here, not yet. He trembled with
the effort of it, but he managed to lower his weapon, its angry buzz waning to
a threatening murmur. He would find his love again one day. One day soon. They
could never keep him away from her, NEVER!

"Be at peace for now. I will one day wreak my vengeance upon each of you, be
sure of that. Not here though. Not yet..." He said with a face calm and
terrible. Some of the warriors trembled, but held their ground in the face of
what could only be an insane Elder.

Slowly, slowly, Morgfyre began to float up into the sky, and the circle
reluctantly followed him, weapons trained all upon the lone figure. His face
was a portrait of banked fury and his eyes were fixed on Tahliel, windows of
pain and frustration. But most of all his love for her radiated from him like a
heat wave, its finality much more effective than any promise of vengeance. They
knew he would be back for her, and when he came he would bring all the force
and wrath of the Void down upon them.

The rift opened above his head, the black nothingness gaping behind him, and
with his shredded robes fluttering around him he floated up into it, the cold
emptiness immediately digging at his form. His eyes never left Tahliel's
though, even as the rift softened in the sky and began to close their mutual
love and trust stuck there like an invisible chain of immutable connection. His
silhouette of colour against the ocean of darkness was visible at the last, a
statue of silent wrath, but his gaze was only for Tahliel, and they were the
last thing to be sealed away behind the rift of the Void.

Terentia and the other warriors sighed and looked nervously down at the broken
figure of Tahliel of the Fifth. Her hair fell dead across her face and
shoulders and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her face was marred with
grief and even then her full lips trembled. But she stared into the sky where
her mate had just been resolutely and that made them fearful.

***

As the Sisters of Fate deemed it Morgfyre never had a chance to return to the
First World and reclaim his love. The Soulless saw to that, when they laid
their final siege against the feeble defenses the Elders threw up around
Lusternia. He was disturbed, but not surprised, when he felt the furious
thought-typhoon that carried the countless mental screams and cries of his
ignorant brethren. He sighed and peered sadly into the gloomy infinity all
around him.

The Twelve had known and had truly tried to show the others, but were deemed as
the Twelve Traitors, instead of the Twelve Saviors as they truly were, and cast
into the Void. His master Fain of the Red Masque ostracized first and he last,
as the Elders were most afraid of him; with good reason perhaps, with good
reason.

"Fools," He said as he floated onwards, "Ruined fools."

Yet, in his solitude and bitterness a bleak worry arose, and he knew that he
would search for her, even if it took him to the stomach of Illith the
Leviathan herself. He would find Tahliel.

***

Weakened by prolonged isolation and wanderings, wounded by scuffles with
starved and repugnent beasts of the Void and with a spirit dampened by
disappointments, Morgfyre finally came upon Tahliel. He had been drawn here by
the weak rivulets of thought that came off of her and now he saw why. She hung
motionless in the great ocean of dark, her hair frosted and limp hanging across
her face. Great gashes lined her body, out of which sprinklings of her essence
leaked like eddies of star shine.

Morgfyre knew what had happened instantly, his warrior experiences telling him
all he needed to know. Tahliel, frightened and alone, had been set upon by a
Soulless, a weak one and by some virtue of her knowledge managed to hurt it.
But not before it ripped her. He could feel its presence somewhere nearby even
now, licking its wounds before it came back to feast on its feisty prey.

Rage and sorrow climbed up out of his gut, shattering Morgfyre's self-control.
That beast will pay sorely, he thought and he truly wanted to fly off towards
where it hid and strike it down...but as he saw Tahliel, his love...his mate,
all the strength left him and only a heart-broken, time-beaten maverick
remained. He glided over to Tahliel's side and laid his cheek against hers. It
was cold.

His eyes burned and his throat lumped painfully, but he didn't care. Tahliel's
still form fogged his mind and his heart so that he wouldn't have even minded
breaking apart there and then and having his essence float away with hers. He
sighed, and moved his head slightly to press his mouth against what he thought
were Tahliel's dead lips.

They were cold agaisnt his. Then they were warm.

He gasped and kissed her harder, gripping her shoulders and willing with all
his being for her to come back to him. He felt her essence responding slightly
to his, but still they drifted away. He kissed her harder, and embraced her, as
if to devour her and finally he felt her coming back together. His eyes were
screwed shut then, trembling with the force of his focus, else he would have
seen what was happening to him...and to her.

But finally he felt her there, a presence light and deep, like a crisp morning
wind that carries the prophecy of the day in it's breathe. He opened his
eyes...and she was not there. His arms were still bent in a cradling position,
but they held nothing but empty air, and a few fading motes of golden light.

"...Tahliel?" What was this? He could feel her, but not see her. "Tahliel?" He
called louder. Panic and despair began to overcome him once more, when he felt
his skin rippling. He looked down and gasped.

Upon his grey, stone-like skin were whorls of starry light, and pinpoints of
subtle sparkles. His whole body seemed to ripple and swerve and he began to
understand. He reached inwards, into his being and he felt...her. Tahliel was
with him...he could feel their consciousnesses twining together like a great
grey serpent about a delicate olive tree. He didn't fully understand how
whatever it was had happened, but he and his love were one now.

A great burst of delight and wonder swelled up with him and he felt Tahliel's
joy resonate with his own; from some far-off place he heard her soft laughter
like thin chimes in the wind. He submerged himself in her elation feeling
strength and purpose, which perhaps were not his own, flow into him.

And in that shining moment of love and returned life, the Soulless attacked. It
sprang from behind some curtain of nothingness and darted at Morgfyre, jabbing
its thorny tentacles at him. Only his warrior instinct saved him, as he dived
away, twirling unpredictably through the empty air. He stopped himself abruptly
in the air and instantly his trident was abuzz with anger and wrath.

He confronted the horrendous creature and he had to resist the intense urge to
flee, intensified by Tahliel's fear for him. A mass of undulating limbs
surrounding a cyclopean, purple eyeball was the thing that faced him. The
depthless eye contemplated Morgfyre intently, its countless tentacles
undulating slowly around it. It was slightly bewildered that its previously
helpless prey had been replaced by an agile, and angry, warrior god. But no
matter, it would feast all the better.

The Soulless attacked again, but this time Morgfyre was prepared, with
Tahliel's quintessence sustaining him, to brazen out the cretin that had almost
killed his love.

The tentacles came out, rapid and threatening in the darkness, but Morgfyre
shot towards them with ease. He spun around forcefully, his trident twirling
like a grim, red ribbon of demise, severed tentacles whirling away into
oblivion after its passing. The beast roared, as more of its tentacles swung
out furiously, accompanied by a mental scream of pain and rage that would've
made a lesser god stagger. Morgfyre, though, bore through it, unrelenting, and
lightning fast he leapt forward at its single, violent eye and thrust his
weapon deep into the blue-black pupil, ignoring the tentacles that tried in
vain to grip him.

The creature cried out and tried to move away, but Morgfyre knew what he wanted
to do. He reached out with both hands toward the dying Soulless and, with a
single great heave and swallow, devoured it. It struggled inside him like a
snake within a glass globe, but together with Tahliel he overpowered it and it
knelt before him in his mind; a great presence, dreadful and brooding, but
nothing as terrible as what Morgfyre was becoming.

He felt his skin shifting once more, but deigned to ignore it. He reached out
his incorporeal hands and felt the Void quiver to his touch, and it felt almost
familiar and friendly to him. Bhalhaeton, the Soulless called himself, his
essence mingling with Morgfyre's and madding the Void as homely and pleasant
as a nest of leaves.

A grim smile crossed his once divine lips, and he reached out into the Void,
separating the drapes of the dark; the nothingness was willing to admit a
master of the sinister such as him. Tahliel and Bhalhaeton urged him onward,
and he went forth into the emptiness, leaving a pattern of bitter power in his
wake. They would know who he was now, each of them.

Morgfyre was ready to seek his revenge, with the beginnings of his Legion.