Rikyn

It was time.

The darkness roared at our heels, Duir and I running, occasionally looking back at that ominous, endless dark. Others throng alongside us, thrown, too, from the receding realms, one by one, until we were like a tide arriving on the scene of the Altar. It’s only now that there is really time to gather together, though I had certainly tried to track those I knew in the mayhem of the run here; with wild eyes and a lifted crown, I scan, and call out for those I cannot see with a growing desperation I do my best to be nonchalant about.

"Gwyn! Glacia!" I call, pivoting about, one ear tuned on the shouting Kaos, and the shouts of others, already rushing to meet him in battle, or pleading with him to spare the realm, but the other endlessly flicks and moves, searching for familiar voices in the turmoil, "Arleigh! Mordecai! Erebos!"

I curse my wanderer’s nature, having not already drawn them close to me, rather having pushed them out, as far as I could get them, my inner turmoil the sort that revolves like a hurricane, its wild arms tossing away anything it can. There isn’t much time for cursing or shouting, either, however, when the first few figures are lifted by the Black God’s will, and burst into vile plumes of shadow and ash, one after the other.

I know some of them, a distant whimper at the back of my thoughts sounding as each is struck from existence, but it’s not until the Gods arrive that my entire being clenches fast, and freezes.

"Don’t fight him, stay back!" I was shouting, suddenly cut short by the Divine’s sudden appearance, watching them bolt towards the threat to their people with valor.

The Spark, the last center stone of my life aside from Erebos, arrives alongside only two; the Earth, and the Moon. In an impressive feat of magic, I almost believe that they will subdue the foul God, that he is contained…

But then he breaks free. Magic flies through the air like ash cast off of a wildfire, and the sound of it all, the mourning, the dying, the blasts and crackles, it fades out, until I’m filled with the dull hum of nothingness. Aithniel arrives alongside them, and the Mountain, and my stomach does the same odd, terrible lurch it does anytime I see her, but with a devastating coldness that I won’t feel, not now, not ever. Everything slows down…

Everything grows slower, as they all become light; as they fall to ashes, to dust, into memories…

Everything…

The sound of the Earth’s plea meets my ears, a steady pulse that drives one after the other picking up behind it, urging me on. I realize, belatedly, that it is Duir, bumping into me roughly with his shoulder, looking down at him numbly, following his wild gestures to my herd mates, to everyone else, strewn about like lost children. Hell, dozens of them are children…

Calling out over the end of the world, I try my best to be a leader. I try my best…

"You heard him… Go!" I begin, softly at first, but my voice picks up as I hear others urging people through the Rift, as well, "go on! Hurry up! You too, slow ass!"

Bumping and shoving, I push people who stand dumbly there towards the way out, my family first, if I’ve found them, and then both herd mates, and general civilians alike. Of course, I'm not willing to sacrifice myself, either, and Duir is pretty well kicked through before I take the final step towards the magical portal.

"I'll be right behind you, buddy," I tremulously promise as I push him, more afraid of what will happen than I can let on at this time. The sound of his offended bleat is almost comforting, as I watch him vanish into the unknown.

Before I pass through, however, I do take a last look back.

And I try to leave as many parts of me behind, as I do.

[ OOC: Feel free to have Rikyn very rudely force your character into the Rift. ;D ]