He was too new, too young, too fresh, to understand what was going on. The mountain boy only saw a rush of beasts, a tangle of hooves, shadow after shadow, rampage after rampage, and couldn’t comprehend any of it. For a few moments, he just stood there, silent and intrepid, attempting to absorb the reel of chaos flashing before his eyes, trying to fathom just why his heart flared and fluttered in panic, rushing in time with the weight of the discord sewn into the fire and bedlam. It was strange, foreign, but not exciting, not a zealous, happy rush of a fantastic discovery, or the energetic thrall of adventure and quests, crusades; it was apprehension, consternation, poised right across his very soul.

The child saw power in blades and infernos, Gods racing against time and might, and glanced towards his father’s face, struck to see the panic, the terror, lodged there – then glanced back into the fray – struggling to fathom why.

Then he saw his mother, his bright, beautiful, powerful mother, cascading through the skies, and every ounce of him became emboldened, a searing, whimsical smile curling at his lips – because she would save everyone! She was potent. She was amazing. She was careful, clever, and calculating. His dear dam could do no wrong in the eyes of her child! Don’t look, his father tore into the frame with such a hoarse whisper, but it’d been too late – everything was too late.

She fell apart too, taken by shadow, taken by Stygian abyss.

He furrowed his brow, contemplating the strange mishap. There must have been some kind of mistake. When she didn’t reappear, he looked at Zero again, heard the screaming, the shouting, and tried to inquire over the rush of dread, fright, and terror. “Where has mother gone?” Mauna asked into the thickening web of dismay, glancing this way and that to watch and see if she flew back into the fray, just misplaced, just flying out of range, where he couldn’t see her, where he couldn’t notice her, planning some attack – that was all. But still, the alarm, the panic, seared and seized over him, rushing across his tongue before he could stop himself (she had to be safe; it was almost a given). “Where is she?” He inquired again, head bobbing back and forth, legs suddenly threatening to give way – he wanted her near him, beside him, throwing all his cares away, because they were silly, they were foolish, they were the stuff of little babes and naught else. We’re going through a portal, came after, but everything seemed fuzzy and tossed apart, like it had no end and only a beginning, crashing, falling, thundering down around them. His father forced them into the opening, the rift, and somehow he knew his mother wouldn’t be there with them, and he held his breath, tried to dry the incoming flood of tears, the petulant need for her, before taking the plunge into the rest of the unknown.

Mauna

Crowns have their compass-length of days their date-
Triumphs their tomb-felicity, her fate-
Of nought but earth can earth make us partaker,
But knowledge makes a king most like his Maker.