Might Have Accidentally Written A Sky:cotl Short Story Hehe (EDEN SPOILERS!!!)

might have accidentally written a sky:cotl short story hehe (EDEN SPOILERS!!!)

Styria’s wings pounded, their breathing hard, but they still had the gall to call out behind them, “What’s taking you so long?”

Sairo’s wings beat, taking their sweet time. “I’m not in a hurry.”

Styria practically died laughing, almost falling out of the sky. “They’re showing off the crowning of Eden today! How can you not be excited?”

Sairo huffed, and another star on their cape depleted as they flew. “I am excited. It’s just… I miss the butterflies.

Styria suddenly stopped flying, closing their wings slightly. “I do too. But they say that the harvesting will make our lives better. That we’ll have more light.”

Sairo sighed, finally catching up to their sibling. “I know. But the rain’s never been so hard. I’m always cold, and I miss having the butterflies in my hands. I don’t like the jars, and it takes so long to convince the butterflies back into them like Eden mandates.”

Styria flew over and landed on the branch of a tree near the Wind Paths. “I know. I miss the whales. They used to come through the forest all the time, and now I hardly ever see them.

Sairo curled up a little bit on the tree. “And is it just me, or does the water hurt a little bit, too?”

Their dark blue cape enveloped their younger sibling, hugging them tightly. “The rain falls harder than it did before. But it’s okay. It’ll get better.”

They began crying. “Kirio hasn’t sent me a message boat in a long time.”

Styria pulled them closer, their warmth mixing softly. “How long is a long time?”

Sairo’s tears couldn’t just be stopped so easily. “It’s been two weeks. Kirio always sends me boats on Saturdays. Tomorrow, it’ll have been three weeks.”

They rocked back and forth atop the tree. “Don’t worry. How is Kirio?”

The younger child’s chest wracked harder with tears. “They hate it in Golden Land. The crabs have gotten really angry. They don’t like to be touched, and if we get near them, they attack. They also have started fearing really loud noises. Kirio’s parents have been doing testing, and they got really hurt when they got attacked. They say it’s because of the harvest.”

Styria’s eyes went wide. “What!? Aren’t Kirio’s parents creature specialists? And crabs are supposed to be friendly. None of the other animals have gotten affected.”

Sairo continued to cry. “I don’t know, Styria. The whales, whenever I see them in the clouds by Golden Land… They don’t greet me anymore. Not even Soraos.”

Styria began to weep with Sairo. “But Soraos is your closest friend! You’ve known it since you were little.”

Sairo pressed their mask into Styria’s shoulder. “I don’t know, Styria. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

They looked at the sky, and stood. “We have to go. We need to get to the crowning.”

Sairo got up as well, and grasped Styria’s hand as they flew.

They arrived at the crowning, just in time for the eruption.

Ash fell from the sky, rocks pelting them, stronger than the rain at home. Styria’s cape wrapped around Sairo. They cried together, for the great Eye of Eden, named for the glory of its buildings, the things its ruler had achieved that no one had ever before.

The ruler had discovered how to harvest the light from creatures, to use that light for themselves.

As rubble collapsed from the sky, as the stars on their backs depleted, as tens of others collapsed, Sairo counted. There were more than fifty who had attended the crowning. More than fifty who would die. Dark creatures that could only be described as dragons patrolled the skies, and a constant rain of red rock fell from the skies.

The ruler claimed all light in the world for themselves. For the Kingdom of those who resided in the Sky, or for short, the Kingdom of Sky.

“Styria, I’m scared.” Their arms surrounded them, and they hugged them back tightly, clinging on to them like a lifeline.

“Me, too.”

The ruler always celebrated the day of their crowning, because it had been the day that creatures were industrialized. The light gained was distributed everywhere, but the most was brought to Eden, for as grandiose as it was, it could not function without light. More light than could be produced by the children of Sky.

Sairo felt their last cape star depleting. They brought out their red candle, the candle they had had since before they could remember. And, oh light, for the first time in their memory, their candlelight wavered, then died out. They felt, deep in their core, a piece of themself shatter. Stars exploded from their back, their spine arching with pain.

“Sairo!” Their older sibling screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. Sairo’s blood spilled, but crystalised the moment it spilt. It happened again, stars flying from their skin, slicing their skin as they flew, and their blood turned to blue crystal, hindering their movement, preventing their escape.

Styria was trapped inside Sairo’s blackened arms, and on their final star.

The ruler sat upon a hill, the entire mountain their throne. Light was fed throughout the mountain for the ruler to gather as they sat, to become more powerful even idly.

Styria’s core shattered. Their hair faded, their shape dissipating, who they were disappearing. The two siblings became two amongst sixty-three others, dying in the Eye of Eden, no face, no distinguishable features. Just two husks of what might have once been siblinghood.

No one, least of all the ruler, expected it when the mountain erupted. Too much light from the wrong places, for the wrong reasons resulted in its corruption. Light in its destructive form.

Light may warm, and light may kill.

On the day of the crowning, light killed.

Light killed sixty-three, to be exact.

Styria and Sairo’s last thoughts were of fear.

They now await you, in the midst of a foreign rain.

They await their reunion with the skies.