A Life Without Being: Part One

by silver_eyrie87

Diablos stalked through the forest, brambles scratching at his flanks and tearing at his feathers like clawed hands. His silvery blue eyes sparkled with menace in the moonlight as he stopped in a clearing and sat on his haunches, licking a dark red paw as blood slowly trickled down his arm.

"Stupid forest," he muttered to himself, looking at the scratches down his sides with a shrug as they began to magically heal as immortality willed.

He flicked his devilish tail, waiting… His curled ear tufts that looked more like horns flicked then flattened against his head, useless. His talons, always remaining unsheathed, shone darkly in the moonlight. His nearly pitch-black, bat like wings folded to his back tightly as the time drew on and his patience started to shrivel.

"Where is he?" the Eyrie muttered angrily to himself with great articulation despite his hearing disability. "I told him to come for important matters and he is still late…"

The moon rose just above his head and a flash of black and silver told Diablos that Tahovhan was finally here. Diablos turned towards him and blinked, staring into Tahovhan's blood red eyes confidently. "You are late, why is this? I told you it was important…" Diablos rumbled, his voice sounding like two deep voices merged into one.

"I have important matters of my own!" Tahovhan spat angrily then lay down, talons sheathed. "But now to focus on the matter at hand, what is it you want?" he hissed.

Diablos smirked, "patience is a virtue, Tahovhan, one feature you lack greatly. But, for now, I will make an exception for your arrogance since this matter is indeed important, and I think you'll find it most terrifying…" A cruel smirk twisted across the devilish creature's beak.

"Yes, yes, if it's so important why don't you tell me? Or are you going to let the time drag on until dawn is night?"

"Yet again, I will remind you of your impatience but I will tell you… He's coming, and I think you know who I'm talking about…"

"No…" Tahovhan replied darkly, silvery wing tips rustling impatiently.

"All your nightmares are about to become reality, Tahovhan, for your worst fears are soon to be realized. He is coming, the one who haunts your sleep, the one who killed everyone that mattered…"

"You're lying!" Tahovhan hissed. "He's dead! My whole family is dead other than my siblings who were also lucky enough to survive! He is dead, no, my father can not be alive!"

Diablos smirked, "but he is! I should be the one to know that…" Diablos pointed a talon to his deaf ears then to his forehead. "I'm psychic, have you forgotten? I know the past, and the future, I know what will happen to you if you don't believe! I may be deaf but I can read your thoughts and everything you say is sent clearly to my mind. You think me not able to read the fortunes of others? I doubt that… I've done it for you too many a times and have been right for you to doubt me…."

Tahovhan went stark white under his blackened feathers. He shuddered as the grim memories flashed before him. His mother's death… His father's torture… everything….

"You're thinking of the past? Such feeble matters should not be paid any heed. What's done is done and that's that! You can not change the past but you can change the future to your liking depending upon your actions."

"Easy for you to say! You didn't see your own mother being murdered by your father!" Tahovhan retorted.

"Ah, yes, tell me again, the tale of your mother's death… It pleases me to hear of such brutality," Diablos said with a cruel smile.

"I am not doing this for you, I am doing this so, maybe, after hearing it for the fifty thousandth time I won't be so afraid…" He took a deep breath and began.

"Some time after I was born, my father received the news that my mother had been seen in the market with a male Eyrie. They had kissed and embraced in each other's wings, so he was told. No one knew who this Eyrie was, and so my father jumped to conclusions and ordered the male to a prison cell. He was quite angry with my mother, but I had no idea just how angry…"

"That night, I crept down the stairs to investigate the sounds coming from the dungeon when I tried not to cry at the scene that played before my very eyes. My mother, strapped to a table, was being cruelly tortured by my father's own paws. He lashed her back with the whip and tore her wings with his own filthy talons until she could take no more of the burning wounds that festooned her usually graceful form and took her last gasping breath. Her eyes did not close, they just froze in place, locked in the sockets starring blankly up at my uncaring father. By that time, my brother and sister, Estelta and Sahoven had come to watch the terrors that played out before us. My sister grabbed me by the scruff, me being a cub, and fled to the bedrooms and told me to act as if that hadn't happened. She tried to tell me that it was a dream, but even then, I knew better…"

"The next day, my father took my mother's remains to the cell in which the male Eyrie was imprisoned. When he saw my mother's lifeless body, he wept, and I wondered what connection he had with her."

"After watching the male weep and sob over my mother's barely distinguishable body, my father took the Eyrie by the throat and dragged him out into the middle of town. He took me and my siblings to watch in dread as he himself tore the wings and limbs from the poor creature and threw them aside, twitching convulsively. Once immobilized, the creature was helpless to anything my father did. First, he ordered mages to keep him alive long enough to feel the pain. He closed the open wounds with burning flames and sent jolts of shocking electricity through its body. His shrieks still fill my mind… Before he passed on, he muttered, "You will regret what you have done," then closed his eyes until the world was no more…"

Tahovhan gulped and continued reluctantly, "After about two days of hard labor and taking orders from my father, a messenger reported that they had tracked down who the male Eyrie actually was. I still remember the shade of white my father went as he heard that the Eyrie… Had been her brother…."

To be continued...