Ezekiel
The vessel sat nonchalantly over the roof of a church and yawned. Nothing but the night sky surrounded him, while birds as black as the sky swam in the darkness, their eyes fiery like the stars. And surrounded by stars, the dragon host yawned. He was bored.
"Is this how you felt too, father?"
He ate a serving of cake upside down, bemoaning the lack of music. Weddings shouldn't be so quiet. Actually, it wasn't just him who was upside down, but the entire church. Meanwhile, the patios, the gardens, the flowers, the trees, everything was just being dragged aimlessly by the shadows. Everything was drowned in that sea of darkness.
By all means, fighting that girl should've been the end of it. He should have died. He couldn't even remember how many times this body and soul should've fallen in darkness and vanished. And yet, like a ship, he just wouldn't sink. Every time he thought he could draw his last breath, he'd resurface. The void in its heart wouldn't let him.
So he returned. But his body had been incomplete. The burns, the pain, it was as if it were yesterday. Actually, was it yesterday? Time had lost meaning so long ago, since he had been trapped in that dark place, he lost the count of the days, the hours, the minutes...
So he ate. He ate, and ate, and ate, and ate until he vomited it out of his guts and ate it all again. It tasted like regret, but he ate it with joy anyways. He didn't mind eating. But the silence was drilling his brains more than any sound. He couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the voices at the back of his head. But as he ate, the pain lessened, and his wounds mostly recovered. And the voices were drowned away by the sweet liquors of life. He felt his power coming back, and it felt good.
And he also felt something else come back. His lost memories, not those of the vessel, but knowledge of something long forgotten. That false monarch... the one who dealt the killing blow on the other him... Heh, she miscalculated. That final blow had split the vessel from the dragon momentarily, but she missed her mark. Now, the balance was uneven, and the memories of the ancient sin were starting to flood back. So that was his mission... he understood a little better the source of his hunger. But it was too cruel. Did he really have to suffer for so many years for a mistake he couldn't even remember?
Just how far had his father's madness come? It was almost comical.
He sighed, and flipped upwards, or rather downwards, and landed on his feet on what must've been the ground. It was hard to tell, since the whole church had long since been swallowed by darkness, and he was the last living thing other than his jeweled children floating freely around him. His little birds of darkness.
Three statues surrounded the floor under the church, or rather the scattered bits and pieces. The grail's lion, the playful goddess, and the fae of the spring laid broken around the ground, and he just walked past their fragmented remnants.Until the tides of darkness swallowed them like the sea, and nothing remained. Not even the darkness.
"Well, until next time."
And thus, the vessel left to follow his whims, guided by dark wings wherever they may take.
